Truth & Justice Came First
by jadvisioness
Summary: Someone calling themself “Watchtower” is helping Batman and Green Arrow. Who are they and what happens when Clark Kent and Lex Luthor find out about them? PLEASE READ NOTES -- Batman is no particular era just not TV series from 60's /chuckle . NC17
1. Chapter 1

**Truth, Justice Came First**

**Fandom:** Smallville

Also includes the Smallville version of the Justice League and glimpses of Batman (no particular era)

**Pairing:** Chloe Sullivan/Oliver Queen

**Rating:** NC17

**Summary: **Someone calling themself "Watchtower" is helping Batman and Green Arrow. Who are they and what happens when Clark Kent and Lex Luthor find out about them?

**Warnings:** Spoilers for everything in Smallville – all seasons, just in case; rape/non-con; S&M mentions; tough/feisty Chloe; fight scenes with weapons; bad/evil Lex; a little Clark bashing; 'potty' mouths; hurt/comfort; angst; drama; romance/UST; etc. etc. etc.

_**Additional warning:**_ This story may never be done; as mentioned below in the 'Some Author's Notes' section, the muse has pretty much stalled out on this BUT, as per same notes, feel free to send ideas/suggestions to help finish!!

_No disrespect is meant to all those who created the worlds that we love to play in and the characters whom we love to read/write about. To the actors/actresses/beings who portray those characters, we wouldn't love them as much as we do without your talent and dedication._

This story was first posted to the Kryptonsite on 10/11/2008

.com / forums / ?p=4578553

**Some Author Notes:**

1) 'Caly' is the short form of 'Calypso' which has a definition of: 'she that conceals' or 'to cover, to conceal'

2) Let's face it, many of the superheroes were created a long time ago and, for whatever reason, they weren't concerned with keeping dual identities. In this story, Aquaman, Cyborg, Impulse and even Clark, wear masks when they are out and about.

**As posted on the Kryptonsite Forum 03/30/2009**

_I've gone back to this story many times, re-reading it to try and get the muse interested in finishing it but... no such luck yet._

__

I know Chloe doesn't die -- in the chapter that is in the 'midst' of being written, her body heals itself but she's still 'sleeping' but... that's as far as I've gotten.

If anyone wants to share some ideas/suggestions on where you *think* it might be going or etc., PLEASE feel free to do so.

_I've actually been doing a lot of Numb3rs fic but I'm than happy to come back to 'Truth & Justice' to at least finish it.  
...._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One

_**Late 2006 – Gotham City**_

It's a bitterly cold October night and Commissioner Gordon was on the roof of the Gotham City Police Department building. The wind whipped at his insulated tan trench coat and he hoped that he and the officer accompanying him would not have to be there long.

The Bat-Signal hadn't been beaming into the night skies for more than a quarter of an hour when he sensed the presence of the man he was trying to reach a moment before the sounds of the wind billowing the masked man's cape. Motioning for the officer with him to turn the searchlight with the bat emblem off, Gordon turned around, looking into the shadows that surrounded the building's roof.

Knowing Batman wouldn't start the conversation, Commissioner Gordon did. "I've been getting information from an anonymous source on a variety of crimes being committed in Gotham, but the source doesn't seem to think that my police force is capable of handling the data."

Batman walked out from the darkness, cape snapping behind him in the strong wind, but staying just outside the ring of light that was near the roof entrance to the building – apparently the Batman was intrigued.

Commissioner Gordon shook his head mentally at the vigilante that did more for taking care of crime in the city then all of his police force combined. At first, he thought any guy running around in the costume that stood before him, would be nothing but a nuisance; something else for his overworked, underpaid police officers and other personnel, to deal with. But as time went by, he was surprised to see the crime rate of Gotham City becoming less. Marginally, yes, but still, any downward direction in any wrong doings was something to be looked forward to, something to be praised.

After a few months, he'd decided to try and make contact with the person who was literally scaring the criminals into either fleeing the city or going straight. Several nights spent on the roof with the searchlight showing what everyone had termed 'the Bat Signal' had eventually paid off and Commissioner Gordon and the Batman had come to some type of an understanding.

Holding out a file folder filled with hard copies of the information sent by 'Watchtower' for the Dark Knight to take, he continued. "It seems I'm only to be used as a contact person for you, an assistant, if you will." Commissioner Gordon was slightly surprised when Batman actually seemed to smirk with amusement at the comment. Even after about four years of 'working with' the man, and he used the term loosely, he still didn't know anything about the man behind the mask other than he had a fierce need for justice.

Gordon let him glance through the information. The Commissioner was sure that Batman recognized the name just as he did; the mysterious reporter had been making a name for themself in newspapers and on the internet for a few months. "This 'Watchtower' seems very well informed. Any idea who it is?"

Batman's whiskey rough voice seemed to be made of the shadows, "Not at the moment but I'll look into it."

With that, the Batman was once again part of the darkness that he fought to obliterate from Gotham City and Commissioner Gordon was left saying a sarcastic "you're welcome" into the night.

*^*^*

_**Early 2007 – Gotham City**_

_A few months later…_

Bruce Wayne rarely dealt with the press on a personal level, so most of the information that Watchtower had put together about him was via her own research and whatever the billionaire playboy had allowed to circulate by way of the media. Caly had also gotten very short answers to a variety of questions at various events as well but nothing in depth.

The function she was going to be attending tonight would give her another in-person experience with the playboy from Gotham City; not only providing Caly with a chance to put together some type of article for publication – no matter that Watchtower got a lot of wrong doings cleaned up, she didn't get paid for it – but she was also hoping to get a better feeling for the man himself.

Caly suspected that Bruce lived a dual life, similar to hers, and was the Dark Knight that was currently protecting, although some wouldn't agree to that term, the crime filled city. Having made the connection of the Bat signal and Commissioner Gordon, Watchtower had, for the last few months, been sending the Batman all the information pertaining to wrong doing in Gotham City via the Commissioner in hopes the officer would pass it to the vigilante.

Batman used Kevlar body armor; used very specific personalized transportation – car, motorcycle, boat and a plane – and all those gadgets she had been hearing about, spoke of money, or at least connections to people with money, and Wayne had money; he had Wayne Enterprises, which had its fingers in a lot of pies, including a lot of R&D for Wayne Technologies, a direct competitor with LexCorp.

Caly knew a lot about what the Luthors were capable of with their research and development departments so it wasn't too much of a stretch to think if someone were using their resources for wrong doing and personal gain, someone else, someone as charitable as Bruce Wayne, could do the same in the opposite direction.

Not long after the event started, Mr. Wayne arrived, creating quite a stir with the crowd and bearing some statuesque beauty on his arm. Caly mentally rolled her eyes but didn't let it stop her from mingling with the group of people that surround him throughout the evening.

Keeping her eyes and ears open, she was very aware that neither of the Luthors had shown themselves at the event. Given how close they were to Metropolis and how each of the Luthors loved the limelight, this didn't sit well with Caly. Not wanting to think about what could be holding their attention, she forced the unsettling thoughts aside to focus on Mr. Wayne.

Her vigilance paid off.

A couple of hours into the party, Caly's suspicions about Wayne seemed confirmed as he excused himself, needing to take an international business related call, and less than an hour later, Batman was on the scene of a hostage situation on the other side of town.

*^*^*

While Caly did not want to reveal herself in any way to Batman, she also did not want him to know that someone knew his real identity. Over the next several days, Caly watched Bruce Wayne, both as herself and as Watchtower and found that Batman varied his patrols as well as how he patrolled. Some nights it would be via his car, others it was the motorcycle, rarely did he actually use his plane unless it was required.

It was relatively easy watching him and it didn't necessarily put her in danger, as she had spent the last few years learning how to defend herself properly; however, Watchtower didn't relish being this close to Metropolis. There were too many people who knew her there and the danger to herself if the Luthors found out she was alive, was entirely real.

Caly wanted to stop using the Commissioner as a go-between for their communications, or hers at least, because it was entirely one sided thus far, for a variety of reasons. After a week of watching him, Chloe came to the conclusion that the only way to pass the information to Batman was to package it up and either deliver it to him personally, have it delivered to the Commissioner and have him give it to the Dark Knight, or … somehow get close enough to his mode of transportation and leave it there for him.

Knowing all of his vehicles were equipped with very impressive security systems, the delivery of the message had to be seen as passive, otherwise the information would be destroyed, she was sure. Sneaking up to said transportation wouldn't be wise; hitting it with a suction cup equipped arrow or any such action would be very unwise and obviously dropping it from above, or coming at it from below, would probably set off some type of system as well.

Shaking her head, Chloe came up with the only way of actually getting it near the vehicle, hoping that it would be taken in the spirit it was meant.

*^*^*

Batman was hurrying back to his car to continue with his patrol, when he noticed something dark, moving slightly, close to the driver's side door. Considering the security system hadn't been activated, he was very puzzled as to what it could be.

Cautiously he moved around the vehicle, scanning the area for anything that represented any danger to him. Coming around the back of the car, he was surprised to find a small black box tied with black string that was fastened to a single black helium filled balloon, sitting on the ground near the car.

Non-plused by the item, Batman took extraordinary caution in investigating the package before opening it. Inside, he found a CD with his name printed out on a sticky note attached to the case. Looking around once more, he deactivated the security system, jumped in and sped away.

Watchtower sighed with relief. And then smirked at the entire situation before heading back to her hotel, looking forward to the flight home the next morning.

*^*^*

_**Late 2007 – Metropolis**_

Like Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen rarely dealt with the press on a personal level, however, he was a bit more approachable. Unlike with Wayne, Caly Scott had actually done a couple of pieces on Star City's own billionaire and, having gotten somewhat used to dealing with the rich and famous, Caly preferred dealing with Oliver. She actually enjoyed talking with him about the charities, projects and business ventures that he was involved in and he seemed honest in his concern for his fellow man, be they rich or downtrodden. However, she still did her best to make sure that the interview, or more specifically, the interviewer, was as forgettable as possible.

So when she was, again, introduced to Mr. Queen at the benefit in Metropolis, Caly found herself incredibly surprised and slightly unnerved by the glance of recognition from the blonde playboy.

"We've met before, haven't we?" Mr. Queen's date didn't give her a second glance, nor did anyone but the assistant who'd introduced them.

Doing her best not to give her surprise away, Caly nodded once and went on to mention that she had covered a few charities that he had been involved with as well as a couple of other articles. Oliver had smiled at her then, taking her hand and, instead of shaking it, he brought it up to his mouth and kissed her fingers while his date looked at her askance, one eyebrow raised.

Caly blushed significantly and then, as soon as she could, promptly made herself scarce.

As the evening progressed, Caly found herself thinking of Mr. Queen's behavior more than she wanted to admit. She had a large dossier on Oliver and she knew that he didn't often choose to greet females in the way he had done with her earlier. In fact, Mr. Queen seemed to reserve it for very few occasions and it was that last that puzzled her almost to distraction.

Trying to put the moment in perspective failed her, so then Caly tried to bury it in the back of her head; she had things to do.

But it continued to worry her.

If Oliver Queen recognized her, in any way, then the persona of 'Caly Scott' wasn't doing her job. She was supposed to be invisible. If she wasn't, and someone like Oliver remembered her, Caly Scott certainly wasn't safe around the Luthors, was she?

A couple of hours after her moment with Oliver, both he and Bruce moved to the podium that was on the stage near the band. They each said a few words about the cause of the charity and then graciously thanked everyone for their attendance and their generosity, leaving to the crowd's applause and the band beginning another round of music.

Once again, the Luthors were a no show and not more than half an hour later, Oliver Queen was leaving the benefit, his date on his arm, begging an early flight back to Star City the next morning.

And that night, in Metropolis, both Batman of Gotham City and Green Arrow of Star City, were seen.

*^*^*

_**Late 2007 – Star City**_

_About a week earlier…_

Calypso Scott made her way through the busy, seasonally decorated _Star City Bugle_ building, smiling and nodding at people she recognized. While the petite, brown-haired, brown-eyed woman didn't work in the building, being a freelance writer for several different publications, both newspaper and magazine, Caly had made some acquaintances here and there through the years of her association with the award winning newspaper and enjoyed seeing them now and again.

While the building, much less the paper, wasn't as renowned as Metropolis' _Daily Planet_ or even Gotham's _Gazette_ or _Globe_, Caly preferred the atmosphere here much better. Metropolis was a can of worms waiting to burst and made her anxious any time she had to travel there and, while Gotham was a beautiful city in and of itself, the night life left a lot to be desired.

Star City had its problems, of course, but having lived there for the last two years, Caly found she actually preferred it to any other place she'd been. You never had to worry about snow; the criminal population was kept in relative control by their police force as well as their own Green Arrow; she hadn't run into any people with 'special abilities' and Caly hadn't had any near death experiences while living here.

Continuing rapidly through the busy lobby into a waiting elevator, the petite brown-haired, brown-eyed, conservatively dressed woman, who had specifically been asked by the editor to join him for a meeting today, looked at her watch again. After having overslept this morning, she smiled in triumph at having made up just enough time that she would arrive at the door to Thomas Davidson's office on time.

Just about to knock on the doorframe, Thomas raised his head and motioned her inside.

Caly closed the door behind her and Thomas, as if continuing a previous conversation, started right in, "I really wish I had this person on my payroll."

Looking at the front page of the early morning edition, Caly saw the headline and fought down the smile that wanted to reveal itself. Having not read any of the paper this morning due to her running late, Caly didn't have to actually lie, "Who's that, Sir?"

Davidson looked at her like she was from another planet. "You're a reporter, Scott, how could you not know what I mean? I'm talking about this 'Watchtower' that's been giving all the papers information on all the wrong doings all over the nation!"

"Sorry, Sir, I've been running late all morning; I haven't had a chance to read the paper yet."

Huffing, Davidson let the comment pass. "At any rate, they've been scooping every reporter in most large cities for months.

"Where, and how, are they getting their information? I've sent my best reporters out looking for leads on the stories they're getting and it's too damn dangerous for them. I've also had them looking for any information on this 'Watchtower' and so far, nothing."

Caly nodded her head once, responding in agreement. "They certainly are well informed. But, Mr. Davidson, if you think I can do anything that your best reporters haven't done, I really think you're reaching."

Thomas chuckled. "No, Scott, I know you couldn't get anywhere where they couldn't. Besides, you aren't cut out for that type of reporting. No, no," Davidson shook his head before continuing, "I know where your talents lay, Caly."

Caly couldn't help feeling disappointed by the editor's comments. If he knew her past, he wouldn't think anything of sending her into whatever was out there. However, on the other hand, having him express the sentiment with such assurance ensured her that her identity as nothing other than Caly Scott was completely entrenched.

"So, what's the meeting about, Mr. Davidson?"

"The newspapers have gotten advance notice of a charity benefit that will be held in Metropolis. It's been put together by our own Oliver Queen and Gotham's Bruce Wayne. Lex Luthor's scheduled to be there as well – to give a very large donation in lieu of not being able to help personally."

He looked at his best 'Entertainment & Living' section freelance reporter and continued, "This has your name written all over it, Scott. I'm giving you first dibs."

Yes, this was Caly's 'talent,' hobnobbing with the rich and famous, checking out restaurants and other, in her mind, worthless pursuits. It wasn't what she was born to do or to be but it was what she did now because it allowed her to keep tabs on what people were doing with their money and quite a lot of the politics of the world as well.

However, when it came to all things Metropolis, it would be like walking into the lion's den.

Despite the danger it would put Caly in, she accepted the invitation with sincerity and gratitude. It was, after all, what 'Caly Scott' was for.

After leaving Davidson's office, she stopped at the desks of a few acquaintances, leaving behind seasonal cards and some small gifts before setting out to check on sources and information for some follow-up articles for a couple of magazines she had been contacted to write. Along the way, she visited with her network of friends and other sources for anything new. Grabbing a late lunch at an up-town deli, Caly sat back to skim the early edition and then read through the evening issue before running the last of her errands for the day and returning home.

*^*^*

Back at the two-bedroom, top-floor apartment of the three level building, she moved to the smaller bedroom and began stripping away the trappings of the non-discrepant reporter who specialized in being a chameleon to allow her to blend in almost anywhere. The woman sighed with relief once the wig, conservative suit and contacts were put in their respective areas in the large closeted area she used to keep her personas straight.

The unknown, mysterious and well-informed 'Watchtower' had planned on staying in that evening, sifting through the results of her latest information gathering programs' results, scanning a pile of hard copy and doing filing. Sighing with relief, knowing that she wouldn't have to put on her black wig or black leather and vinyl uniform of her alter ego, she prepared for bed.

The petite blonde brushed out her long, wavy, mid-back length hair before braiding it for the night. Sliding into a tank top and some short shorts, not bothering with the glasses that she used if see was going to be seen by anyone, the woman looked at her reflection.

Even to herself, looking in the mirror was bizarre. She would never have guessed that just having long hair and adding some glasses would change her appearance so much.

Besides her green eyes, which she chose not to conceal with anything other than the glasses when she wasn't being Caly Scott, or wearing dark shades when she was in costume as Watchtower, her smile was the hardest to hide. She had spent months learning how to smile differently so if and when Caly ended up around people from her past, they wouldn't recognize her right off the bat.

After all, she hadn't spent the last four years changing her life and hiding herself to blow it all with a trademark Chloe Sullivan smile at some benefit like the one she'd be attending back in Metropolis next week.

*^*^*

_**Late 2007 – Metropolis**_

_The morning after the benefit in Metropolis…_

Chloe blinked as she read the morning edition of the _Daily Planet's_ small story of the Dark Knight and the Emerald Archer being seen in Metropolis. What was the Green Arrow doing here? And if she didn't already know who Batman was, she would have been incredibly suspicious of his being in Metropolis as well.

Lex now owned the _Daily Planet_ and she knew that both her cousin, Lois Lane, and Clark were now working there and Chloe spent an emotional filled hour going over the pros and cons of making contact with them. However, in the end, her good sense prevailed. Chloe had not spent the last few years of her life hiding from people who knew her just to jeopardize it now because she was in her old stomping grounds and homesick.

And if Lionel got wind of Chloe Sullivan being alive… She really didn't want to think about it.

During the flight back to Star City, Chloe pulled up all the information she had on the Green Arrow. She would have to double check with her files at home, she had dossiers on everyone she watched, but what she had on the laptop should give her a good starting place.

The trip was long and boring, as usual, but Chloe's excitement kept her energy level up. Arriving at her apartment, she quickly retrieved Oliver Queen's folder and sat at her computer station, pulling up more information on the internet and began cross-referencing everything she'd put together during the flight.

Three hours later she was sure that she had another hero's secret to guard as well as another vigilante to help in his fight for justice.

*^*^*

_**Early 2008 – Star City**_

Taking the same course with the Green Arrow that she had with Batman, Chloe watched Oliver Queen, memorizing his habits as well as Green Arrow's routes of patrol. Unlike Batman, she found a pattern to his behavior and devised a way of getting his attention, and his alone. She didn't want just anyone coming across the information she wanted to give him and she didn't want him getting caught either.

Chloe decided that it would be both easier and harder to get the information to Green Arrow then it had been to the Batman. Green Arrow traveled mostly by zip-line, so she had to make sure to use something that would get his attention, but not enough to make anyone else come and investigate the scene. A couple of weeks after finding out about Oliver Queen's dual identity, Watchtower set up a small fireworks display that would be triggered by a remote she controlled. Knowing that he would be literally swinging by the building she had targeted, all she had to do was wait until he was in sight.

*^*^*

Green Arrow was on his way home for the night, near the end of his normal patrol, when he landed on The Grell Museum rooftop. Just as he started to recon the area, popping and hissing sounds came from behind him and he quickly turned around to be faced with a variety of colorful sparks shooting a few feet into the air. Checking the area, he approached the dying firecrackers and sparklers with caution. As they sputtered out, he saw a green box slightly streaked from the small fireworks display and, using his foot, he moved the box into the open. Stepping back, he used his compound bow to tip the box on its side.

The cover came loose and he swept it away from the box with his bow to reveal a CD case inside.

Once again using his bow, he moved the CD case out of the box, flipping it over. On its other side, there was a sticky note affixed to the cover with 'Green Arrow' spelled out on it. Looking up and around, the Green Arrow saw nothing that showed he was under any type of obvious surveillance and he bent down, picking the case up and putting it into one of his pockets.

Looking around again, he cautiously chose a different route than the one he'd intended before the fireworks went off. If he was being watched, he didn't want to lead anyone back to his base.

*^*^*

Watching Green Arrow deal with what she had left for him was almost comical. Watchtower was glad of his caution with the package as well as taking another route home instead of the one she knew he would have if her fireworks display hadn't have distracted him.

She knew that no one came to the rooftop on a regular basis but had not wanted to chance on leaving something behind that would draw the curious. The box and its contents as well as the firecrackers and sparklers had all been handled with gloves. The remote control device had been designed in such a way that it would turn to ash, mixing with that of the pyrotechnics.

No evidence left behind that could be traced anywhere, no garbage to take care of so she wouldn't be seen cleaning up.

Time to head home.

*^*^*

It took him an extra hour to get back home but Green Arrow figured it was worth it, making sure no one was tracking him. He'd even stopped a few buildings away from where he'd picked the CD up from and tossed the case, putting the CD in a reinforced pocket, to make sure he wasn't carrying some type of GPS on him.

Once back home, he quickly stripped from his costume, putting on some comfortable sweats and then went to his computer station, immediately loading the CD into a stand alone system. Taking the time, he scanned the CD with a couple of programs he used to kill viruses and other negative software before deciding it was clean.

Pulling up the directory of the disk, he found several folders, but the first one listed was a document that demanded he READ ME FIRST.

Snorting, he opened it.

**_Green Arrow,_**

**_I'm Watchtower. Many of the nation's newspapers have been carrying some of the articles from my underground internet paper and, over the years, I've been sending a lot of my information to the authorities and government agencies. However, the information hasn't been being used as well as it could._**

**_I've been giving a variety of said information to the Batman of Gotham City for the last year and I'd like to start sharing that information and my resources with you as well._**

**_Below is an email address with username and password that has been set up for you. Any information I come across that may be helpful to you, I'll pass along. While the firecrackers would get your attention, I feel this way would be much more convenient, for the both of us._**

**_By the way, vary your patrol routes, you're becoming predictable._**

**_Watchtower_**

Oliver Queen blinked a couple of times and then gave a smirk of amusement while shaking his head; whoever Watchtower was, they were certainly interesting. Queen had read every article that any newspaper had printed of the mysterious reporter's findings. He'd also attempted to hack Watchtower's website, "Truth's Guardian," in order to find out their identity, to no avail. Whoever the person was, they would be an incredible resource to tap into and he'd wanted to see if he could get them to help his own goal of serving justice.

Queen started opening folders, finding the data very well organized and extensive. It took him days to go through the information that 'Watchtower' had sent him, giving him evidence of various activities that he could use to shut down several things, such as a car hijacking and drug ring, he'd been keeping track of. He also found information that was being compiled on things, people and businesses, some of them Queen was actively watching, while others had fallen below his notice. It was like a database of possible and probable wrong doings that was waiting to be utilized or for more information, giving leads on things that weren't necessarily bad yet, but could be at any time, all at his fingertips.

More and more impressed by the information and resources of Watchtower, he wished for the thousandth time that he knew who the person was and how they had access to everything they did. Queen was also suspicious of it, of course; while there was a Watchtower out there, this might be some type of ploy to get to Green Arrow – a way of gaining his trust and luring him into some type of trap.

Oliver would have to walk carefully.

*^*^*

_**2004 – 2007 Chloe's years**_

After the explosion at the FBI safe house, her father dead, all alone, Chloe Sullivan realized that she couldn't be the reporter she wanted to be – that is, to be that and actually live, live without looking over her shoulder and sleeping with the lights on. However, she wasn't hardwired to just let things happen; she was Chloe Sullivan, the teenager who'd taken on the Luthors, who knew secrets left and right, who's curiosity had gotten her into more scrapes than the proverbial cat that got killed following its nose.

Growing up and experiencing Smallville with all of its meteor infected people, happenings and things; knowing about Clark Kent's alien abilities and being privy to the munitions of the Luthors hadn't fully taught her that she wasn't prepared for doing what needed to be done in this world, squeezing by with her luck, her wits and her own personal hero, until her mind had been irrevocably changed when Lionel had somehow made the FBI safe house she and her father were living in, unsafe.

At seventeen, she was an orphan, had a powerful family gunning for her and was pretty much scared out of her mind.

However, all of that aside, truth and justice had to come first and in order to continue doing what she did best, Chloe had to create another identity. Much like Clark would have to, someday, if he was to follow his destiny, she thought. She had to create a persona that could get the intel on the bad guys and somehow get it to the good guys without endangering herself, her freedom and her life, in the process.

While freelancing for a variety of magazines and doing small newspaper featurettes, writing children's books on the side, Chloe spent the next two years in training; taking every self defense course she could afford before going onto martial arts classes taught at a local recreational center. She even found a small group of people working out with actual weaponry, bartering with and begging them for training on how to use throwing knives and the like in exchange for tutoring them in journalism and doing research for them.

Chloe had then found a small apartment in Star City that was close to three different types of gyms and a university. Hacking into the university network gave her a pretty anonymous internet connection, a lot of resources that she hadn't been able to access in Smallville and a base of operations to create a variety of research oriented and information gathering programs.

With all the computer hacking that she had ever done for herself, Clark and others, she had never taken anything but information. After the explosion, she had nothing; as it was, she'd barely escaped with her life. She couldn't stay 'Chloe Sullivan' any more and that meant she needed money. She had to create a new identity from scratch.

Taking a huge risk, she hacked into a variety of LuthorCorp business bank accounts and siphoned off enough to hold her over for a couple of years, if used frugally. She covered her tracks and made a bunch of false trails, the only one leading anywhere actually ended at the, now dead, she hoped, FBI agent that had had ties to Lionel Luthor. She also set up a program that intercepted bank transfers from all of Lionel's and Lex's companies that was redirected to a few off shore accounts that then redirected to over two thousand other transfers before actually ending up in the same off shore accounts that they were redirected to in the first place.

A penny here, a penny there, really added up after a couple of years!  
.

A year into her training, Chloe found herself more frustrated than she had possibly ever been in her entire life. While freelancing and writing children's books paid her living expenses, it left her feeling depressed and incredibly hindered in her ability to search for the truth and get it out there; to get justice to those who needed it.

It was then that she realized she didn't just need a new identity, but that she also needed an alternate identity. The first one needed to be who she was on a daily basis, when she was out and about. When she was home, she could revert to form as Chloe, but outside she had to be someone who could totally slip under the radar.

Getting her 'everyday' persona together was relatively easy and a few days later, Calypso Scott's life was laid out, paper trail and all. Her other identity, other persona, needed to be as far away from her personality and person as possible, but still comfortable or she knew she'd never be able to pull it off.

Going back to memories of her childhood, she thought about her dreams of what she had wanted to be when she was older, of Saturday morning cartoons and Halloween costumes and after researching and going through a variety of costume stores, she ended up purchasing most of what she needed over the internet.

The wig came from a specialty store on the East side; long, sexy dark-brown blackish ringlets, that would obscure the frame of her face very nicely. The weapons came from her trainers, who had become dear friends she remained in touch with after moving. Black leather gloves that came up to the middle of her lower arms; black leather and vinyl thigh-high boots with two inch spiked heels on the outside and an additional two inch platform footed area inside that would help mask her height significantly; black leather and vinyl turtle neck body suit that left her shoulders and arms bare and a black leather coat that would hang a few inches passed the tops of her thigh-high boots.

While Chloe had put the outfit on, she hadn't done anything with it except the gloves and boots, figuring that she would need to learn to work with the gloves on and needed to learn to balance with the additional four inches of height.

After an absolutely terrible first night out in costume, Chloe realized she was completely unprepared for working in the outfit she'd chosen. She would need a lot of practice in order to be really comfortable in the entire thing, not just the gloves and boots, and she also needed to be more familiar with how to access her weapons without any fumbling or hesitation.

It took her awhile to find a secure location to practice at and to get the logistics of her costume worked out but, three months later found Chloe going out for her 'second' debut. The night went as perfect as the first debut was terrible.

Watchtower was born.

*^*^*

While her time spent as Watchtower was definitely paying off, the information she was passing on to the authorities and government officials really wasn't bearing much fruit. Either they weren't able to act on the information quickly enough, they weren't following through on it or corrupt individuals were suppressing it. To make it even more difficult, they were set on knowing her identity as well as using her for their own purposes.

Pulling together all of her resources, she began publishing an underground internet paper that dealt with uncovering all the wrong doings Watchtower had been gathering information on. Within a year, most of the major papers were carrying some of her stories and those people being focused on were doing their best to find the source of them as well as trying to hack her site.

While Watchtower kept a watch on the bad things of the world, Caly Scott kept her eyes and ears on the pulse of it. Under cover of her freelance magazine and newspaper featurette reporting, she made a habit of keeping track of various billionaires, the politically minded, certain charities and maintaining a network of connections. That said, however, she didn't really particularly care for the 'wealthy' functions that she had to attend in order to keep up with everything.

Knowing there was a good chance of getting photographed or having either of the Luthor's arrive – Lionel had been released from prison due to the star witness against him, Chloe Sullivan, being dead – she created another persona for herself when she went to the various gatherings. When she was at these functions, she used a brown wig and contacts and dressed in conservative suites and dresses. When she was being herself, she had let her blonde hair, grown well past the middle of her back now, always pulled into a pony tail or braid, and wore large glasses; her wardrobe completely her own.

Sometimes Chloe felt like someone with a multiple personality disorder. It was so bad that she had taken to separating her large walk-in closet into three separate sections to accommodate each of them. She guessed that it was a good thing that she didn't have a roommate or had any intimate relationships because there would just be too many questions and they'd never be able to understand everything.

As it was, Watchtower was relatively easy to portray because she rarely interacted with anyone. The brown haired 'Caly Scott' was quiet, smart, listened to everything, but was otherwise someone who didn't really hold anyone's attention. And then there was herself.

When she actually got to be herself, Chloe was essentially the same as she'd been back in Smallville, only improved.

*^*^*

_**2008 – 2009**_

_Over the next year…_

Green Arrow had been introduced to Batman and, at the unknown researcher's insistence, they had established a tentative relationship. Watchtower communicated with both sides about the need to form some type of alliance or league, to pool their resources, giving them a better base to bring truth and justice to the world. While the Dark Knight grudgingly appreciated Watchtower's efforts, he was very territorial and possessive of Gotham City; he definitely appeared to be a solitary person, a 'does not play well with others' type.

However, Watchtower didn't appear to let that phase them as they continued to discuss the formation of some sort of group to fight for the truth and to see that justice was served.

It was also through Watchtower that Green Arrow became familiar with three other heroic individuals. And it was through them that he came into contact with a truly extraordinarily powerful person named Clark Kent.

*^*^*

Chloe had known that, at some point in time, she would end up dealing with her past. While she had introduced Green Arrow to Arthur Curry, Bart Allen and Victor Stone, it was AC, Bart and Vic who introduced Green Arrow to Clark Kent.

She was happy because she knew that Clark's destiny was to be an incredible force for good, and having the other four around would help him grow into that responsibility. She was also pleased because that meant that the other four would have a significant backup when they needed it. However, she was just as anxious about Clark finding out who Watchtower really was and the fallout and consequences of it.

Chloe had kept tabs on everyone important to her, of course, but she'd let them think she was dead, for years. She'd known about the death of Jonathan, Clark's father; his mother, Martha Kent, becoming a Senator; Lana Lang's marriage to, and divorce of, Lex Luthor; and her cousin's fight for truth, in Chloe's name. But she knew, when push came to shove, that what she was doing was what she was made for. And in order for her to do that, Chloe Sullivan had had to disappear, to cut herself off from her former life. She believed, without a real doubt, that the sacrifices she had made and continued to make, were worth it.

Chloe just hoped that when she came to light, came 'back from the dead' to her former best friend and to his family and their friends, that they would all understand and forgive her for the deception.

*^*^*

It was also during this year that Oliver Queen had moved to Metropolis for an indefinite period of time, intent on opening a branch of Queen Industries in the thriving city. Dividing his time between Metropolis and Star City was exhausting and, unknown to Queen or Green Arrow, Watchtower took it upon herself to pick up the slack created by the archer's absence. She made Star City her number one priority when processing information and gave the authorities significant tips on illegal or questionable activities when Oliver was out of town.

While she didn't consider herself in the same league as the heroes she Watched for, Chloe made a real effort to do her own patrolling and kicking some butt, carefully, of course, when Queen was away or otherwise engaged. However, she honestly had to wonder how Oliver thought he was supposed to keep his identity secret if the Green Arrow 'followed' him where ever he went, leaving Star City unguarded.  
.

The evening had been eventful and Watchtower was thankful to be home. Taking off her black costume, she made her way to the bathroom, intent on cleansing the dirt, grime and blood from her body, after the last altercation.

It had started much like any other; she'd patrolled, stopped a couple of muggings, one convenience store robbery, ferreted out some information from several sources and then Watchtower had come across a pair of police officers walking their beat. They'd stopped to check out a disturbance in an alley near a club that was known to have connections with drugs and gang activity.

However, the officers had gotten more than they bargained for and were attempting to call for backup while fighting off a handful of gang members that had been causing trouble in the club. While they were wearing Kevlar vests under their uniform shirts, those didn't offer much protection against edged weapons or being beaten and there wasn't a lot of space in the alley for using anything but deadly force when it came to using guns.

Watchtower dropped down behind some of the assailants and began using her nunchaku's on the ones nearest her. Caught by surprise, the two dropped quickly but were replaced by two others; one was brandishing his own set of nunchaku's and the other, a long dagger.

"Well, lookie what we got here. You're a gorgeous, momma, aren't you." The one with the dagger looked the woman in black over, licking his lips.

Watchtower didn't even blink, watching them close on her.

His partner looked to his fallen gang brothers and then back to her, a feral gleam in his eyes. "And she likes to play."

If she hadn't been watching for it, Watchtower would have been in trouble. But she knew what she was doing and when the one with the dagger tensed, she moved out of the way of the thrown knife and then met the attack of the one with the nunchaku's. Watchtower saw the one that had had the dagger pull another one from somewhere on his person as she was fighting with his partner. Taking advantage of the stance the one she was engaged with, she threw her spiked boot into his groin and then whirled around to meet the one with the dagger.

Trading a few blows, she then began to hear sirens and chanced a glance to the police officers. She noticed one was down, his partner trying to protect them both from three others. Watchtower turned and roundhouse kicked her last assailant and then rushed to the ones the officer was battling with.

One of the three turned to her before she'd gotten within comfortable hand-to-hand range, his arms just a touch longer than hers, and a knife slashed through her black leather jacket, sliding along her forearm. Wincing slightly, she used her nunchaku's to sweep his arm, grabbing it at the wrist and throwing him off balance into the dumpster just a few feet away. Once he was parted from his gang brothers, she pulled a throwing knife from her boot; it caught him high in the shoulder, essentially nailing him to the wall as one police car skidded to a stop in front of the alley, more sirens still approaching.

Watchtower didn't even look back to the officers, knowing that they were safe now and opting to get away from the location as quickly as possible.

Using moves that the Green Arrow would probably smirk at, she was soon a few rooftops away, and crouched down, pulling her jacket off. The wound wasn't bad but she wanted to get it taken care of sooner rather than later. Taking a breath, she placed her bare hand over the sluggishly bleeding slice in her arm and concentrated. Golden light began to seep around her fingers and she caressed the wound, almost as if she were spreading some type of salve along it. Soon, the wound was completely gone, not even a scar to show that it had ever been there.

Dropping her hand, she stayed crouched for a few minutes, pulling a power bar from one of her pockets, ripping into it, she took a few bites. Healing, depending on the severity of the injury or illness, could leave her feeling dizzy, nauseous and very thirsty. Getting up, she made her way back to her apartment.

*^*^*

Chloe had found herself outside of the safe house, or what was left of it, singed all over, clothes in relative tatters, soot covered. Overwhelmed, all she knew was that she had to get away from the area and she struggled to her feet, stumbling and clamoring through the debris. Life was a complete blank to her for the next couple of days and she would never be able to recall what, exactly, had happened or how she had gotten out of the safe house once the bomb went off. But considering her appearance and state of dress, she assumed that she hadn't gotten out of the safe house unscathed.

A few days later, she broke into a hunter's cabin and collapsed to the floor from exhaustion. After sleeping the clock around, Chloe came back to herself, the layers of shock that had been protecting her from the outside world seemed to have dissolved over the time she was unconscious and she hugged herself tightly, rocking back and forth, her body wracked with sobs. A tear fell from her chin and landed on her still singed forearm and then she was enveloped in a bright golden light.

When she awoke again, her entire body was completely free from all of the physical wounds that had come from the safe house explosion, the days of hard travel through the wilderness and Chloe found that she was starved and thirsty, more than she could ever recall having been in her entire life.

Several months went by, the golden light appearing every once in a while, when she would touch some type of wound on her body, whether it was a bruise, a paper cut, or some type of injury incurred during her training sessions and Chloe came to the conclusion that, after all her years in Smallville, she had her own 'meteor infection.' She also began to think that she hadn't escaped the safe house as she thought. That she had actually died in it and after she came back to life, she must have dragged herself out of the house and passed out; coming to after being injured from what little flames had still been burning before she ran.

It took her months of trial and error to learn to control her gift of healing and to understand that it used her essence, exchanging her life force with the life force of another if she healed someone besides herself, or her own energy reserves when treating herself. Chloe was paranoid about anyone finding out and had taken to wearing gloves, finding that she actually needed skin on skin contact in order for her gift to work. Chloe also realized that, no matter how scared she was of being found out, she had a very valuable gift and she strove to use it to benefit others as much as possible.

However, the first time she found herself waking up on a cold, smooth surface in the morgue, made her realize too, that she needed to be careful with what she healed, how she did it, who she did it to and where.

*^*^*

The morning edition featured a small article on the incident at the club, letting the public know that two officers had been set upon by a number of gang members after an altercation inside the building. One of them was listed in serious but stable condition in Star City General and that, if it hadn't been for a mysterious woman in black, they both may have died before other officers arrived on the scene.

Chloe smiled slightly, glad to know that neither of them had died, and then continued to read through the rest of the paper.

*^*^*

Oliver Queen always read the _Star City Gazette_ online when he was away from home. Since he'd moved to Metropolis, he had been reading every article of the 'woman in black' who seemed to know whenever Green Arrow was away because she only appeared when he was out of town. Green Arrow had looked for the mysterious guardian whenever he was in Star City but had never found her; even going so far as not to patrol for a couple of nights in a row, hoping to draw out the elusive lady in black. But it was as if she actually _knew_ who the Green Arrow was.

This concerned Oliver deeply. However, there wasn't much he could do about it if he couldn't find her. And, if she were acting as the city's guardian while Green Arrow was away, could or should he trust her in regards to his identity?

If she did know his identity and was deliberately hiding when he was in town but faithfully patrolling Star City when he was away… Oliver sighed.

*^*^*

_**2009**_

_About six months later_

"Arrow to Watchtower, I'm in position."

"Cyborg to Tower, I'm in position."

"In position, Watchtower."

"Aquaman to Tower, I'm at the perimeter."

"_Watchtower to team, comm is clean and clear. Arrow and Cyborg, you are good to go."_

"Copy Watchtower."

"Copy Tower."

"_Aquaman you have two heat signatures ahead and to the left; Impulse you are clear."_

It wasn't their first mission using their merged communications systems with Watchtower; there had been several between that first time and this one actually, and they had done missions before ever knowing anything other than the information that was passed to them by her. However, they had found that having Watchtower at the comm with them in real time made them better at what they were trying to accomplish, they were more in sync as a team. She gave them direction; kept them on track and going at a steady clip, especially when they got too focused on bantering at each other over the comm; warned them of potential dangers they wouldn't have seen until they were on top of them and so much more.

While they were all intrigued by the woman who never seemed to sleep or have a lack of information when they needed it, Oliver Queen found himself far too interested in her. Once again, Green Arrow was paying too much attention to Watchtower's voice coming over his communicator and not enough on the mission he and 'the boys,' as she called them, were in the midst of.

Oliver did whatever he could to work with Watchtower, whether it was asking her if she had anything for the League that day, if he could help her with anything that she was working on or having her work on encrypted files that he'd come across. He especially loved it, and hated, when she was able to work missions with them; her voice coming through his earwig would send shivers down his body that he had to consciously stifle.

_God Queen, get your act together. You can't be falling for her; you haven't even met her. You don't have a clue who she is or what she looks like. Hell, you don't even know what her real voice sounds like!_

Green Arrow jerked his attention back to the mission, sighing with frustration at his lack of control.

*^*^*

_A couple of weeks later_

Watchtower had been giving the Justice League, that's what all of them finally decided to call themselves, mountains of information on the activities of Lex and Lionel Luthor lately. Frankly, they were all staggered by the amount of data that their faceless hacker/librarian/researcher was coming up with and it looked like Watchtower had been pulling it all together for years.

The most recent information she'd been passing on to the League was very disturbing. Evidently Lex was gathering people who were 'meteor infected,' from either the first or second, or even both, showers that had hit Kansas, or just natural special abilities, such as Aquaman, Impulse and Clark, and running experiments on them. Watchtower had included a database that included individuals that had disappeared over the years or who may be targets in the future.

Where and how Watchtower had gotten all of the information was anyone's guess, just like everything else she found and passed on.

Reading over some material that dated back well over five years ago, the team was startled when Clark suddenly pounded his fist through the coffee table that he and Oliver were sharing, before standing up and heading over to the floor to ceiling windows that looked out of Queen's Metropolis clock tower apartment.

Oliver looked at the other four before getting up and walking over to him.

"What's up, Clark?"

The tall, black haired reporter shook his head slightly before sighing quietly. "In 2004, my best friend was… killed. She was going to testify against Lionel Luthor confessing to her that he'd killed his parents. The FBI was putting her and her dad in the Witness Protection Program and had taken her to a safe house."

Clark's voice petered out for a moment while the others listened.

Turning around, he faced into the room and continued, "I don't know how Lionel did it but it had to have been him. There was a bomb… There wasn't much left of the place when the authorities and rescuers were able to actually get into the place. They found what appeared to be some human remains…."

Clark made his way back over to the sofa and started picking up everything that had been laying on the coffee table when he'd put his fist through it.

"If Watchtower knew about all this back then, why didn't she come forward?"

Oliver could understand where Clark was coming from but from the little he knew about Watchtower, he'd just found out she was a she about three months ago, – the woman could definitely keep her mouth shut, that was for sure – he knew that Watchtower didn't act without plenty of evidence.

"Hey Clark, I get where you're coming from but, maybe Watchtower didn't have the evidence back then. Maybe she found it too late to help your friend and has been hanging onto it to put another nail in Luthor's coffin."

The younger man paused momentarily before nodding his head slowly, continuing to pick up what was left of the broken table.

Oliver wanted to get Clark's mind off the loss of his friend, who, even after almost six years, seemed to still have a hold on him, and called for a break. Deciding it was best for a change of scenery, he told everyone to meet him at the steakhouse on Twentieth, just a few blocks away. Bart, of course, was the first one out of the penthouse and Oliver winced. The others laughing at him, telling him to bring his best charge card because they all knew that, smaller size aside, the kid's extraordinarily fast metabolism would have him out eating all of them put together.

*^*^*

Over the next week, Oliver continued to think about all the information that Watchtower was now giving them on the Luthors as well as Clark's revelation about his friend. While he believed what he had told Clark, and Watchtower had been nothing but incredibly helpful to all of them, he had to wonder why she was giving all of it to them now. Lex and Lionel had both had spots on that database that had been given to him over a year ago but nothing of the magnitude they were going through now.

He decided that, after a year and a half, he had a right to know who he was dealing with.

*^*^*


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Two

_**Late 2009 – Metropolis**_

Since Watchtower had to meet Green Arrow in Metropolis, Chloe decided to utilize the time to break into LuthorCorp. She didn't relish being in the proverbial lion's den, but, even with her hacking skills, there were things inside the building that Chloe wouldn't be able to access via her computer, like hard copy files, intranet infrastructure that wasn't connected to an outside feed; safes and vaults; storage areas.

Watchtower had found several references to some type of experimentation on humans but nothing specific. Knowing the Luthors as she did, Chloe was certain that whatever it was, wasn't going to be ethically humane and would only benefit the Luthors in some way. This was her chance to get information from the source.  
.

The Luthor security was a joke, as always, and Chloe couldn't help but smirk. After all these years, you'd think that Lex and his father would have learned from the constant break-ins they suffered through. However, that just made Watchtower's job a lot easier.

Prowling through several offices, she came across a variety of information that would be useful for her crime database but nothing of the caliber Watchtower was actually looking for. Noting the time, she cautiously made her way to Lex's office and set herself to the task of downloading the contents from his laptop. Knowing how adversarial the Luthor's were to each other, Watchtower decided to do the same for Lionel's computer as well.

Before leaving either office, she installed a piece of software that she had designed. It would be seen as a harmless piece of code by anything but a militant security level software algorithm. Knowing that the Luthor's dealt with such contracts, Chloe expected the program to be found and destroyed before too long, but it would give her a doorway into each system that she didn't have now, for a short time. And who knows, maybe they wouldn't find it for a much longer time than she expected.

Watchtower was making her way through the building to the exit she had used to get in, when the power went out. Continuing in the darkness towards the stairwell, she was momentarily blinded when the emergency lighting came on as she opened the door to the stairs. Watchtower and the guard looked at each other with twin expressions of surprise before she slammed the door and began running down the corridor to the opposite stairwell entrance.

Hearing the door crash against the wall as the guard burst through it, Watchtower zagged to the right just as the retort of a gun broke the silence. Chloe was almost to the door to the stairs when the gun sounded again. Crashing through it, she put a hand to the wound in her side and stumbled down the stairs hurriedly. Going down two levels, she threw open the door, hoping to either startle a guard for the moment it would take for her to kill him with one of her throwing knives, or find no guard whatsoever. Going down several doors, she opened one at random and slipped inside, just hearing the stairwell door crash open as the guard in pursuit entered on to the floor.

Chloe crouched in a corner and covered her wound with her hand, the bright golden glow of her healing ability flowing into the bullet wound, sealing and regenerating the tissues, muscle and veins in moments. Standing, she made her way to the door and back into the hallway. Watchtower caught the guard just exiting one of the rooms and used a throwing knife; it impaled him in the thigh and he fell to the floor, reaching for his radio.

Watchtower threw herself down the hallway and back into the stairwell.

*^*^*

The night was cold, with the promise of snow in the crisp scent of the air and Green Arrow had observed the area thoroughly before loosing an arrow to the building that was where he'd be meeting Watchtower for the first time. Landing on the rooftop, he assessed the woman carefully in closer detail, a smile playing about his lips.

"I like the look." The green leather clad archer commented.

Green Arrow tried not to wince as Impulse's whistle came through his communicator. "Mama Mia!"

"Glad you approve." Watchtower's voice distorter gave nothing of her natural voice away; even when she was manning the comm during a mission, she used it.

The wig wasn't obviously fake but Oliver didn't think it was her natural hair either, it would identify her too easily; however, it suited the look; her eyes, indeed, the entire top half of her face and head were masked not only by the wrap around sunglasses she wore, but the curly wig of long black ringlets. She wore a long black leather jacket that appeared to reach just passed the tops of her thigh-high black boots, a black body suit and black gloves.

Trying to circle her, he found that she turned with him, never letting him get behind her; the skin that showed at the tops of her boots looked to be creamy smooth but her muscles appeared well toned; the glitter of metal inside the top of each boot spoke of her being good with weapons too. Given that, Green Arrow was sure that the opened black leather jacket contained a few other surprises inside as well.

Aborting the circuit, he came to a stand still, crossing his arms over his chest. Given the information Watchtower had been sending he and others, Oliver knew she had one hell of a brain. But it appeared that she not only knew how to defend herself, but was a visual knockout also.

Just then, Green Arrow put it all together in his head. _Watchtower's the woman in black, taking care of Star City when I'm out of town. That means she knows who I am!_

Before he could say anything, she pulled a pair of dark sunglasses out from a pocket.

"Take out the earwig and lose the shades. Put these on." Watchtower put the glasses on the roof top and backed up a few steps.

Oliver blinked behind his eyewear, impressed and slightly surprised at the caution. Reaching up to his right ear, he took out his communicator. As he reached down, exchanging his glasses for the ones she set down for him, he replied in a slightly sarcastic tone, "Paranoid much?"

Having put his eyewear and his communicator on the roof top he stood up and backed a couple of steps away. He backed up further when she motioned him to do so, picking up the items. Examining them for a moment, she looked up at him and smirked. Talking directly into the earwig, her eyes still seemingly focused on him, she continued.

"One, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean that I'm not being watched. Two, I don't like eavesdroppers," and she blew into the ear piece before turning it off.

Green Arrow grimaced, not wanting to think about the consequences of what the feedback did to his co-workers' ears back at headquarters.

She put the glasses and the communicator into a small black plastic bag and then put them in her pocket. Looking up, she smirked again. "I'll give them back to you when we're finished."

They stared at each other for a few moments before Watchtower uncrossed her arms from her chest. "Well, this has been interesting but I have work to do." Putting one hand inside a pocket to retrieve the plastic bag, Green Arrow shook himself out of his thoughts.

"What makes you think we're done?"

The woman raised her left eyebrow. "You wanted to meet, we've met; I don't do staring contests."

"Just meeting isn't what this is about; I still don't know anything about you."

She snorted slightly, "I'm Watchtower, you're Green Arrow. There isn't anything else you need to know."

Green Arrow shook his head with rising impatience. "How do you know everything you know? Why are you in contact with us? You suggested we get together, form an alliance, we're trying to do that now but what is all of this to you? Why does it matter to you? How do you know what the Luthors are up to? Who are you? Who are you working for?"

Watchtower looked at him and, not for the first time, Oliver wished he could see her eyes. "You don't need to know anything other than the world needs people like you and the rest of those like you. I'm good at what I do and I pass that on to people who are good at what they do."

Trying to keep her talking, hoping for her to drop more information, he continued, "You could send all of it to the police or even the FBI, why us? Why me?"

Watchtower shook her head, setting the ringlets of the wig bouncing slightly. "You wouldn't be doing what you do if you thought the police could handle it. Too few of them to do what needs to be done; too many of them corrupted to ensure that the good ones do their job and I'm not even going to talk about the government."

Before he could think of any other delaying tactics, she put the black plastic bag containing his shades and communicator on the roof. Standing up, she began backing into the darker area of the roof.

"Wait." Green Arrow called out to her. When Watchtower came to a standstill, he stepped forward a step, to which she stepped backward. Green Arrow stopped, "Boy Scout said that Lionel Luthor killed his best friend almost six years ago. He wanted to know why some of the information you've given us wasn't brought to light then.

"Given your comment regarding the government, can I take it that you've had dealings with them? Bad ones?"

For the first time, Watchtower seemed anything but confident and secure. It was very slight, but Green Arrow had enough experience with reading people that he saw the few seconds of uncertainty in Watchtower's stance.

"I'm sorry for Boy Scout's loss but there were reasons the information I've been giving you didn't come to light until now. Other things have come about that allow past information to be brought up."

Green Arrow was pretty positive that he was missing something in this conversation, he just didn't know what. While his instincts told him that Watchtower wasn't lying to him, they also told him that she wasn't telling him everything she knew.

Furrowing his brow, Green Arrow asked the researcher in black, point blank, "Did you know Boy Scout's friend, the one who died when the safe house exploded?"

Chloe had been almost blindsided by Green Arrow's revelation of Clark telling him that she had died in that safe house bombing those years ago; Clark Kent never told people things like that, he was too closed off. Then again, Chloe supposed she should have expected _something_ but she hadn't prepared herself for any conversation on this topic for this point in time, and she certainly hadn't planned on talking with Oliver Queen about it.

His last question _did_ completely blindside her however and she struggled with an answer, any answer that would sound satisfactory, not only to him, but to Clark.

Watchtower's hesitation, her silence, gave Green Arrow all the answer he needed.

"You did. You knew his friend. Did you have this information back then? Why did you suppress it?" Green Arrow was frustrated and confused about the situation. He was torn between his loyalty and friendship to Clark and his acquaintance with Watchtower.

Oliver didn't know Watchtower, but she had never given him bad or misleading information in his entire acquaintance with her and hadn't heard anything nugatory from Batman or the media either. In his opinion, she was doing what she could to bring justice to those who needed it; she had gotten him to think about getting together with other likeminded individuals to help achieve that goal; she kept his secrets; she patrolled Star City when he was out of town; he'd even let her talk him into linking up a communication system to share so that the team could get real time information from her when they were on missions.

Watchtower was an incredibly valuable resource, a remarkable woman.

However, Oliver did know Clark and he valued the man's friendship and trust. The man was obviously still upset over his friend's death, perhaps he felt guilty for not being able to save her as well. Whatever, the man was obviously still thinking of it and to know that there was someone out there who could have come forth to do something about the injustice left Oliver feeling frustrated and uneasy.

Green Arrow had taken a couple of steps towards Watchtower before he realized he'd even moved. Before he was within touching distance, however, Watchtower had a set of nunchaku's in her hands and was in a powerful self-defense stance.

Putting both of his hands up in the classic 'surrender' pose, he backed up. Putting both hands on his hips, he sighed, his head tipped backward slightly and he took a deep breath. "Sorry, Watchtower, don't mean to make you feel threatened."

Lowering his head, he saw the woman in black still prepared to defend herself and his lips turned up in the corners a bit.

"Something tells me that, no matter if I am a man in excellent condition, I'd have a hell of a time restraining you." He attempted to break the tension that was radiating from Watchtower.

"I'm pretty sure I could take you out." Came the tense response, although there seemed to be a hint of amusement in the distorted voice.

Green Arrow smirked, "Pretty sure of that aren't you?"

Watchtower's reply took him off guard, "You'll just have to trust me that I did what I thought best those years ago. Second, I'm sure that I'm good and good things come in small packages, Mr. Queen."

And then she was gone.

*^*^*

Green Arrow was momentarily taken aback with the confirmed fact that Watchtower knew who he was and she'd used that moment to make her escape. Once again, frustration clawed through the green leather wearing hero and he turned abruptly to retrieve the plastic bag from the roof top. Ripping into it with more force than was necessary, Green Arrow quickly put his earwig back in and exchanged the glasses. He put the ones Watchtower had given him to wear in the bag and stuffed it in one of his pockets. Given the intellect of the black clad researcher, he seriously doubted that she would have left any trace of who she was on the shades but it was worth a shot.

Turning the communicator back on, he surveyed the area and then made his own exit. Landing a few rooftops away, he tried contacting headquarters. "Anyone still able to hear me?"

"Dude, what did she do? We had to change speakers, man."

Despite the situation, Green Arrow chuckled at Bart Allen's comment. Typical Impulse response.

Bruce's voice came over the communicator, from the Bat Cave in Gotham City, complete with the growl that the Batman was known for. "Were you able to get any answers?"

Green Arrow sighed, leave it to Bruce to cut to the chase. "No, just that she seems to support us in what we're doing." Stopping himself from taking his hood off and running his hand through his hair, he continued, "And she knows who Green Arrow really is."

There was silence over the comm for a moment before Bruce voiced the question that most of them were thinking.

"Watchtower's the one who convinced us to create the League, yet she's made no overtures with regards to joining it. What do you think she'll do with that knowledge?"

Green Arrow secured another line to swing to another building, answering just as he launched himself into the dark expanse, "I don't know for sure but I'm thinking she won't do anything with it. And just because she hasn't joined us doesn't mean she's against us, Batman. After all, look at you."

*^*^*

A week had passed with no contact from Watchtower. Oliver had checked in with Bruce and had, nonchalantly, found out that the black clad researcher was still in communication with him, so it was definitely the members of the Justice League that she was avoiding.

Oliver had spent a lot of time going over his first meeting with Watchtower and he couldn't understand why he was having so many conflicting feelings and thoughts; why was the control he was so proud of, almost non-existent when it came to her?

As each day passed, Oliver was unaware that he was becoming more and more out of sorts, not only with himself but his co-workers in the League as well as the employees of Queen Industries. On the fifth day, right after Oliver had snapped at Victor about not having some non-critical information, Bart and AC decided enough was enough.

"What is up with you, man? Did something like crawl up your ass and die or something?"

"Yeah, Bro, what's up? You've been like a hammerhead shark with a severe headache for days."

Clark had to blink and chuckle regarding AC's comment and it deflated some of the tension that had filled the room after Oliver's outburst.

Oliver wiped both his hands down his face, hard, before sighing and apologizing to Victor.

Tilting his head back for a moment, he then lowered it back down and ran a hand through his blonde hair, spiking it more than it already was.

Looking straight at Clark, he said without any preamble, "Watchtower knew your friend. And I think she knew about the information she's given us, back in 2004. But she also said that we'd just have to trust her in that she did what she thought was best at the time."

Oliver gave them all a few moments to process the information. While he'd given them a run down on the meeting with Watchtower when he'd gotten back that night, he hadn't given them any real details, which he did now.

"She had no right to withhold that information! She should have gone to the police, or the FBI." Clark replied once Oliver had finished.

"Dude, your friend was killed while in FBI custody. Maybe Watchtower decided that retreating was the best way to deal with the situation for the time being." Bart squeezed one of Clark's shoulders in understanding.

"Maybe." Clark responded. "But, it's been almost six years. Why now? Why wait so long?"

"Clark, you've dealt with the Luthors for a long time. I've known Lex but not anywhere near as long or as well as you. Can you honestly say that, without a significant amount of unshakeable evidence, that Lex or Lionel would be taken down? I mean, your friend –"

"Chloe. Her name was Chloe. Chloe Sullivan." Clark interrupted, old grief and pain on his face. "She was Lois' cousin."

Oliver nodded and continued, "Chloe, she was in FBI custody, going into the Witness Protection Program, when she was killed. If Watchtower knew her, and knew about the information that she's now given us, and came forward back then… don't you think that it wouldn't be so much of a stretch to believe that Watchtower would have been killed as well?"

Clark sighed and after a moment he nodded his head.

"So, if you're so cool about this situation, Ollie, why are you being such an ass?" Victor commented.

"Just because it sounds like I've come to terms with it doesn't mean that I'm not upset, frustrated or angry about the situation. I have the same questions you do, perhaps more."

Not voicing any of them though, Oliver continued, "I'm also concerned. Watchtower and I didn't part in the best of ways and with her remaining silent with us… I just wonder if she's decided to stay silent with us, permanently."

*^*^*

Now that her past was coming in to play, Chloe wasn't sure how to continue working with Oliver and the rest of the Justice League. Working with, and she used the term loosely, Batman, was much easier because he was a loner. He didn't care much about anything if it didn't affect him personally or Gotham City in particular. But Oliver wasn't a loner at the moment. He was the leader of the League and he was a co-worker and friend of Clark.

Chloe understood how he could feel like he was in the middle of something because she'd been there a lot, with Clark and Lana and Clark and everyone who wanted to know his secret or when she covered for him when he did things that no one had explanations for.

For the last week, she had been trying to come up with a way of working with all of them, especially after Oliver talked with Clark, as she was sure he would at some point in time. It was easier siding with people you knew and if Watchtower put all her cards on the table, and things went wrong… Chloe Sullivan would be known to be alive and a target of the Luthors once more. Her cover as Watchtower would be blown and the League might decide she was too much of a problem to bother with.

That left only working with Batman.

That wasn't bad really, but it wasn't good either. She'd be cut off from helping to get justice to the people who needed it, to get the truth out there for everyone to know.

*^*^*

Another three days passed before Watchtower contacted the Justice League to give them the information she had gotten from LuthorCorp. Before she ended her communication with them, Green Arrow requested to meet with her once more and that Boy Scout wanted to accompany him.  
.

Green Arrow and Clark arrived at the designated place and before too long, Watchtower exited the shadows. Nodding her head at them, she addressed Clark before either of them could speak.

"I know you can X-ray me to find out who I am and I'm asking you not to. You may think you're invulnerable but I am not and I know you aren't either. And I'm also warning you to keep your distance as I have something with me that you're allergic to." Watchtower was obviously fingering something in a pocket of her leather jacket.

Oliver blinked and Clark looked shocked.

"Do you understand?" She asked, her voice distorter couldn't quite mask the sincerity of the question.

Clark nodded.

Green Arrow looked from Watchtower to Clark, slight amusement mixed with disbelief coloring his voice when he responded, "You're allergic to something? And… you can _x-ray_ people? Just by _looking at them_?"

Clark looked to his friend with a sigh and then back to Watchtower before giving Green Arrow a shrug.

"Learn something new every day."

Turning his attention back to Watchtower, he took a moment to study her before continuing. "Watchtower, I'm sorry about our last meeting. I was beginning to think we wouldn't hear from you again." He continued before she could say anything.

"I felt like I was between a rock and a hard place right then – between you and Boy Scout – feeling like I was caught between loyalties, as it were."

Oliver stared at her momentarily, trying to get across to her the conflicting thoughts and emotions he was dealing with, before saying the rest of what was on his mind. "In that database you gave me over a year ago, there was nothing of this magnitude listed for Lex or Lionel. Given all of what you've been sending to us right now… years of information, I have to admit, I'm feeling a little unsettled that you… maybe you have an ulterior motive or different agenda then the rest of us, right now."

Watchtower nodded at him. "I can understand and appreciate what you mean, Green Arrow. I know how what I'm doing could be interpreted that way and that might make things uneasy between or among us for a time, perhaps even to the point where you feel that you can't work with me any longer."

Green Arrow held himself still, feeling the tension radiating off Clark as well, but he needed to know where Watchtower was coming from.

"I've been watching the Luthors for a long time and I know that, despite what any of you may think, they aren't going to be easy to take down, no matter if we have evidence or not.

"I just need you, both of you, all of you, actually, to know that if things had been different those years ago, I would have acted. But things weren't different and I did what I thought was best, for all involved. And I need you to trust me because I don't have any motive or agenda other than getting the truth out there and helping get justice to those who need it."

Sighing slightly, the woman in black continued, "Chloe didn't want anyone else to get involved; she wouldn't have wanted all the collateral damage that would have happened if I, or anyone else, had tried to continue with things after she had died."

Watchtower moved her head slightly to focus on Clark. "Clark, you have to know that Chloe considered you her best friend. She did a lot for you, she kept your secrets and ran interference for you in a lot of things. She loved you, she was _in love_ with you for years. She made some mistakes along the way, of course, just like any human does. But in the end, she followed her own path. Chloe chose to seek justice and truth against powerful individuals.

"Those individuals killed her and, years later, they still have power, even more than back then. There is no statute of limitations for murder; we need to build a case against them that is so strong that they can't get away with what they've done and the only way that's going to happen is with the cooperation and work of people like us.

"You know how slippery the Luthors are and they have their hands into everything and that's what makes taking them down so hard. It might take years but justice will be served, Clark, we just have to pull together and see it through. And we also need to make sure that whoever takes them on is well protected and free of corruption."

She was looking at both of them now and Oliver couldn't help but be impressed with the woman in front of him again. Watchtower was, indeed, a very intelligent individual. She kept secrets of many people and seemed to be incredibly loyal. He hoped one day that she would consider him a friend.

Watchtower sighed once again before continuing. "Clark, did you ever think what it must have been like for Chloe? How hard it was for her to keep all the secrets she had been given or found out? How, just the responsibility of those secrets, put her in danger? She did it for you and for others because you, and those others, were her friends."

Clark looked down towards the roof top for a moment before nodding his head.

"You're right. I'm sorry for thinking the worst of you, Watchtower. It's just… I miss her so much. She was my best friend and I can't help but feel somehow guilty about not being able to save her. About getting her involved with my life and the lives of the Luthors.

"That she'd still be alive if it wasn't for our friendship."

Watchtower's stance changed immediately, going from calm, reasonable and comforting to completely affronted. "Clark Kent, you are such a martyr!"

Clark jerked his head a bit, his mouth falling open slightly.

Oliver was watching the two and couldn't help the smirk of amusement at Clark's reaction.

"Do you honestly think Chloe blames you for her death? It was her decision to get involved with you, with the Luthors and with all the business that eventually led to her getting killed. She is to blame for her own mistakes, not you. You did not hear Lionel's confession to Chloe; you did not choose to pursue justice for the deaths of his parents, Chloe did.

"You couldn't have changed anything about Chloe, just as she couldn't have changed anything about you. Chloe followed the path that her life was meant for. She died doing what she loved doing, finding out the truth, standing up for it. If she were alive now, she'd be doing the same thing, although I'm sure she'd be doing things significantly different."

Clark closed his mouth with a snap, becoming angry. "How do you know? What do you know about Chloe, how do you know her? Who are you?"

Now came the truth. Chloe had deliberately made him think of the situation, having it all fresh in his mind, talking with someone he really didn't know. If she had appeared as Chloe from the get go of this meeting, she never would have gotten him to think about everything.

One thing about Clark Kent that hadn't seemed to change over the years was his non-ability to really think things through, to go off half-cocked.

Taking a breath, Watchtower took off the wig and then removed her glasses.

*^*^*

While Clark was standing beside him, mouth open and completely shocked, Oliver was standing in stunned amazement as he looked into the most beautiful green eyes he'd ever seen.

Suddenly Clark was striding towards Watchtower and before Oliver could think to hold him back, Clark was staggering to a stop. Oliver watched as Clark's eyes opened wide in disbelief, pain and hurt.

Chloe hadn't wanted to bring the meteor rock with her but she needed the assurance that having it would give her if she needed a weapon against Clark.

"Damn it, Clark, I told you I had one." Watchtower had turned off her voice distorter and Oliver got to hear her natural voice for the first time; the voice that sent shivers down his body, now in its natural state, was even harder to ignore. Shaking his head and clamping down hard on his self-control, Queen told himself to get with the program.

"What's going on? You ok, Clark." Oliver was standing near Clark, at a loss with what to do.

"Take him back a few steps, please. He'll be fine when he's not so close." He looked up to find Watchtower looking at them with a mix of emotions on her face and in her eyes.

Clark did seem to recover when he was pulled away from Watchtower but before Oliver could ask anything, Clark was verbally going after the woman.

"I can't believe you! You were my best friend and you let all of us think you were dead. And why do you have a –"

"I warned you, Clark." Watchtower, or Chloe Sullivan, Oliver realized, cut Clark off with a look to himself. Obviously whatever had caused Clark to stagger, Chloe was once again protecting Clark's secrets.

"And we just spent some time going over why I let everyone think I was dead. There was nothing that could be done then. Chloe Sullivan had to die if I wanted to live, if I wanted to continue to look for the truth and bring justice to those who needed it."

Watchtower, Chloe, seemed to struggle to bring herself back under control before continuing.

"As to what I brought with me, I wasn't sure how you'd respond to me. I've changed a lot over the years, Clark, and one of those things has been how to protect myself. Whether or not we were friends back then doesn't have any bearing on the here and now. It would have been short-sighted, not to mention stupid, of me to meet with you and not have a way of defending myself."

Clark blinked, his expression growing pained and angry. "You think I would have hurt you? What the hell has happened to you, Chloe, to make you think that? How can you believe I'd do anything to you?"

Oliver stood back, figuratively, and watched the two former best friends try and come to terms with everything. He was stuck again, somewhere between that rock and a hard place.

On the one hand, he completely understood where Watchtower, err, Chloe, was coming from. He admired her for what it must have taken to walk away from everything she knew and loved; hell, she must have gone from being a high school kid thinking about tests and college and prom, to an adult having to deal with the likes of the Luthors, gunning for her overnight when that safe house was bombed.

On the other, Oliver didn't know Chloe but he did know Clark, and Clark was obviously confused and hurt about the entire thing. His best friend was now right in front of him after six years of pretending to be dead. All Clark knew was that he'd been living with the fact that she was dead, feeling guilty for his supposed part in her death and all of a sudden, she wasn't dead, there wasn't any guilt. But there was anger at the deception, at the manipulation of the entire thing.

Taking a huge breath, Chloe spoke, "Listen Clark, the Chloe you knew is dead. She had to die for me to live without watching over my shoulder every second of every day. The Luthors don't know I'm alive, if they did, the safe house wouldn't have been the last near death experience I had.

"I spent the first couple of years after the bomb just trying to stay off the grid. I did every odd job I could find that didn't require any identification and paid in cash on a daily basis. Once I got my feet under me, I spent as much money as I could learning self-defense.

"After awhile, I went into writing freelance and children's books. After that, I had to get my life back on track – what I was meant to do. And that was become Watchtower. I've been doing what I do best since then. And I couldn't have done everything I do now, help Batman and the Justice League if I'd shown myself earlier."

Chloe looked at Clark earnestly.

"I'm still a threat to the Luthors, Clark, more so now as Watchtower, actually. However, if Chloe comes back from the dead, she won't be among the living for very long. You know that just as well as I."

Clark looked at Chloe. "Come home, Chloe, we'll find a way to deal with this. We can protect you, keep you safe."

Chloe rolled her eyes and sighed exasperatedly. "Clark, it's not your job to protect me, to keep me safe. And you can't be with me every single second of every single day. That isn't life, for either of us. And I can't do what needs to be done, what _I need_ to do, that way either. And neither can you."

He tried once more, "Chloe – "

"No, Clark! This is _my_ life. You can't live it for me, I can't live it the way you want me to and if you tried to make me, I would hate you for it.

"I've found a life as Watchtower. I do what I need to do and I'm good at it. I help others with what I do; I help them do what they do best too."

Clark let out a huff of air and shook his head. "Look… what do I tell Mom? What do I tell Lois?"

"You don't tell them anything."

His mouth dropped open for just a moment. "You can't expect me to just – "

Watchtower interrupted him again, intensely and with conviction. "I expect you to keep my secret. I expect you to say nothing about Chloe Sullivan being alive and being Watchtower. I expect you to give me the same courtesy that I have given you for well over a decade Clark Kent." Chloe's eyes burned with determination.

As Clark and Chloe stared at each other, Oliver didn't move, watching the battle of wills. He was really interested in finding out who would win. While he knew Clark could be a really naive Kansas farm boy, he also had the capacity to be an incredibly mature adult. However, Clark worked more with a black and white view of the world and didn't see the shades of grey that most of it truly was.

"Chloe…" Clark sounded like he was almost begging for her understanding. For her to just give in to his reasoning.

"Clark, if you can't do as I expect then you and I can't have any contact, in any way, shape or form. Not even via the League. You'll put me and everything I've done over the years in jeopardy, not to mention put the League at a serious disadvantage."

Oliver didn't react outwardly but his mind raced over Chloe's statement. Yeah, if he couldn't handle this situation, Clark would either have to stay away from the League or Watchtower would have to. And Oliver found himself extremely split on that. The advantages with both were obvious. The disadvantage of losing either of them would be a significant blow to the League in any form.

However, Oliver found himself thinking that he would miss the opportunity of getting to know Chloe Sullivan better. And, for some reason, that didn't sit well with him at all. Mentally shaking his head clear of those thoughts, he turned his attention back to the two in front of him.

Clark backed a couple of steps away. "I need to think, Chloe." And with that, there was a blur of colors and a whoosh of wind signaling Clark's departure.

As soon as Clark was gone, Watchtower seemed to deflate a bit.

Oliver watched her unabashedly as she closed her eyes for several seconds, lifting a gloved hand to rub at the bridge of her nose. Sighing, she straightened her back, glancing towards him before putting the wig back on, covering the blonde hair that was long enough to be stuck down the back of her leather jacket. Watchtower was just about to bring her arm up to put her shades back on when Oliver realized he couldn't stand to let her hide those amazing eyes.

Sticking his hand out, he said inanely, "We haven't been formerly introduced. I'm Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow." He smiled at her, using his other hand to take his own dark glasses off and push his hood back from his face.

Watchtower blinked and then laughed lightly, giving him a smile. Taking his gloved hand in one of her own, she shook it. "Actually, we have been introduced, Mr. Queen, several times; you just know me by the identity I use for my day job."

"I'm sorry, I don't recall." He wanted to tell her that, of course, he remembered her, because he would never forget that smile or those eyes.

"'She' works very hard at being unmemorable, Mr. Queen. That's her purpose, being able to cavort within the lifestyles of the rich and famous as well as other places. She needs to be forgettable in order for me to do my job.

"However, you seemed to recognize her the last time we met and that concerned me more than I'd like to admit. It's good to know that you don't recognize some aspect of myself as her when she's not in front of you."

Oliver shook his head slightly and looked at Watchtower for a long moment, blinking.

"Yes, well, while you and the rest of the League lead a double life, I…" She moved her head from side to side, "I lead a triple life, I guess. There's Chloe for when it's just me or when I'm doing some causal things, then there's my 'daytime' persona and then there's Watchtower."

Chloe tried not to fidget as the blonde billionaire continued to stare at her. To break the spell of whatever was going on, she started to put her glasses back on.

"Wait." Oliver intercepted her hand. "When did we meet?"

Even through two gloves, Chloe could feel the warmth of Oliver's hand grasping hers. She pulled her hand away and cleared her throat, "We, uh, we've met several times but the last was in Metropolis. It was the evening before the day Green Arrow was reported by the _Daily Planet_ being in town, between the holidays in 2007."

Chloe needed to leave, her composure wasn't doing well with Green Arrow being more Oliver Queen then his masked alter ego.

She decided to put another card on the table, "It was what led me to be suspicious about you being the Emerald Archer."

Once again, Watchtower used Green Arrow's shock to slip away.

*^*^*


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Three

The next day the rest of the League wanted an update on Watchtower. Oliver looked at the guys and pursed his lips. "Guys," he paused, not really knowing what else to say. What had been said was pretty much between Clark and Chloe and Oliver didn't want to get into something that was significantly personal for the both of them. But he needed to make sure that the League understood that Watchtower was being straight and honest with them.

At that moment, Clark burst in to the penthouse in a blur of colors, papers from the desk flying into the air.

Sighing, Oliver went about grabbing up the papers that were on the floor while Bart ran around, pulling the ones that hadn't landed yet, out of the air.

"Has she contacted you yet?"

Oliver looked at Clark. Apparently Clark wasn't as concerned as he was with keeping his and Watchtower's conversation between the three of them. "No, she hasn't. Chances are she won't until she has something for us or she gets some type of answer from you."

"What are you guys talking about?" Victor was looking between the two of them as Bart set the papers he had collected on Oliver's desk.

"Watchtower. She's Chloe, the friend I thought died in that safe house." Clark said, a variety of emotions coloring the words.

Oliver blinked at Clark in astonishment. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Clark? Didn't Watchtower tell us that it was vitally important for her identity to be kept secret? How dangerous it is for her to be known to be alive?"

Clark looked at Oliver, a slight look of defiance on his face. "Her secret's still safe. None of them are going to tell anyone."

Oliver's mouth opened slightly and he turned towards his desk shaking his head. "That's not the point, Clark and you know it. Watchtower has kept all of your secrets, for over a decade and not even twelve hours later, you're dropping a secret she told you specifically to keep your mouth shut on."

Victor, Bart and AC were slowly putting pieces of the puzzling conversation together, quietly watching their boss and the most powerful man in the world's confrontation.

Oliver walked into Clark's personal space before continuing. "Her secret is hers to tell, not yours. You've never revealed your 'allergy' to any of us; I suppose there's a reason for that, huh?"

Clark had the grace to look away before returning his gaze to Queen, "That's different and how can you be so close mouthed about her when she hasn't been completely truthful with you."

Oliver stepped back, his body tense, completely taken aback by Clark's attitude and remarks. "Are you really this stupid, Clark? This childish? She does something without your knowledge, asks you to understand and accept her life and judgment on what she's done and you act like a kid. This is her life, it's her decision. She told you everything last night."

Clark stepped forward, right into Oliver's space, "You have no idea what you're talking about, Oliver. Chloe's not the same person she was before her disappearance. She's in danger and she doesn't care. She walked away from her friends when she should have stayed."

Oliver took a step back from his friend. Clark's self-righteous attitude of the entire situation was really making him angry. "You know, some of us sacrifice being with the people we really care about so that we can go make a difference. Watchtower's done that, in a pretty huge way. You, you worked out on a farm, for years, and now you're a reporter, still sitting on your hands while a world of trouble spins outside your door!

"You don't have any right to judge her. No one does."

Clark looked at his friend. "Clearly you and I differ on the subject. Chloe may be the smartest person I know but she attracts trouble like a magnet. Now that she's surfaced, she's going to need protection.

Oliver shook his head, his eyes widening slightly and he huffed out a breath. "Weren't you listening last night at all? Or were you just ignoring everything she said, knowing that you, in all your infinite Kansas farm boy wisdom, must be right?"

Clark's expression grew hard while Oliver continued, "She's been Watchtower for a handful of years now, she's trained for self-defense. Hell, she's been _patrolling_ Star City while I've been here in Metropolis! She's not defenseless, Clark. Didn't you see any of the weapons she was carrying when you x-rayed her?"

At Clark's expression, Oliver put on a mask of surprise, his voice sarcastic, "Oh, I'm sorry, that was a secret wasn't it. Don't worry, _they_," he motioned to the three other League members in the room who were looking at Clark in wonder and disbelief, "won't tell anyone."

Clark's face darkened and he stepped towards Oliver angrily, "Look Oliver, you don't have any idea what you're talking about or dealing with. Chloe is a master at getting herself in to trouble. I'm not going to let her continue to flaunt her nose at staying out of Lex or Lionel's way because one day, she's going to end up getting hurt."

"You know, Clark… I'm willing to bet that Chloe got into trouble all the time with you around, because of you, not because of who she is. She said last night that she hadn't had _any_ near death experiences _since_ the explosion of the safe house; how many has she had in order for her to think that any near death experience is normal?"

Not expecting an answer, Oliver continued, never taking his eyes off Clark. "Why don't you give her the benefit of the doubt that she knows what she's doing and that she's perfectly capable of doing it and that she doesn't need your mother-hen act."

Clark's jaw clenched and without another word, he supersped out of the penthouse and Metropolis so fast there was a sonic boom that caused everyone outside to look to the sky.

Oliver fell into the couch, resting the back of his head on the cushion and stared at the ceiling for a moment.

"Wow, boss."

AC and Victor were speechless and let Bart's comment stand for them.

"Yeah." Oliver let out a huge sigh wondering what was going to happen next.

An hour after Clark fled the penthouse, Oliver decided to contact Watchtower. She had every right to know what Clark had done and said. He only hoped she wouldn't shut them out because, obviously, Clark wasn't going to let the situation go.

He requested a video conference with her so that she could speak with Aquaman, Impulse and Cyborg as well and she, reluctantly, agreed.

The others hadn't seen her except for the few minutes of footage that Green Arrow's glasses had captured during his and Watchtower's first meeting and he'd deliberately cut the feed and turned his communicator off during their second meeting.

Of course, as soon as her image appeared on the flatscreen, Impulse's jaw dropped and he started with the flirting. "Oh, wow. Chloelicious, Mama Mia."

"Impulse!" Green Arrow chastised the youngest League member, hoping that Watchtower wouldn't be too offended. To his surprise, she smiled and shook her head.

During the communication, Arrow couldn't help but hope that Watchtower would take her shades off again so he could see her eyes but it didn't happen. She took the news better than he expected, at least outwardly, and told him that she would be in touch whenever she had something for them but asked them not to contact her unless it was important.

Watchtower didn't want to take the chance that any of their communications would be intercepted and wanted to put into place some extra safeguards and precautions and implement some other protocols in case her secret fell into the wrong hands or she was compromised in some way. She was also adamant that they refer to her, in any way, as 'Watchtower,' that way there was less of a chance of something getting out.

Oliver could tell that Chloe was upset about the entire situation and with Clark's attitude but that she wasn't going to let it stop her. To her, the search for truth was as much an obsession as justice was to him. He really hoped they could get to know each other better some day.

*^*^*

_**Late 2009 -- Metropolis**_

Lex had often visited various floors of his newspaper, especially that of Lois Lane and Clark Kent, and had always stopped at their desks whenever he was there. Knowing that Lois Lane was the cousin of Chloe Sullivan, he kept an eye on her, not wanting to be surprised by anything the reporter might come into possession of. He also made a habit of keeping tabs on Clark, just like he always had.

So he was quite puzzled when, after all these years, Clark decided to have a picture of Chloe on his desk. Lois had always had one but Clark had never shown any indication of wanting anything really personal in his space, not even one of his father and mother.

Lex didn't like to be puzzled. He believed that knowledge was power and that puzzles, any kind, needed to be solved. So the next time he saw Clark, he asked about the picture of Chloe. Clark never did lie well. Telling him that he just started missing her for some reason was something that Lex just didn't buy. However, he let Clark think he'd accepted the falsehood and continued on his way.

*^*^*

_**Early 2010 – Metropolis**_

Over the next few weeks, Oliver tried to come up with ways of communicating with Chloe that would not jeopardize her safety or compromise who she was in any of her personas. Needless to say, it was difficult because Watchtower was quite adamant about keeping herself beneath the radar; she wasn't exactly paranoid, but Queen could certainly understand her reluctance to do anything excessive that would bring her to the attention of the Luthors.

There was another large benefit that Oliver had to attend, taking place at LuthorCorp, at the end of the current week and he couldn't help wondering if Watchtower would be there in her 'daytime persona.' He knew Senator Kent would be there and she had told him that she had invited Clark to come with her. Oliver suspected that, since the Luthors were supposed to be there as well, that Clark would find Chloe and try and 'protect' her from them and Oliver was anxious to find out who she was.  
.

An hour into the evening, Lex observed the blonde billionaire of Queen Industries talking with a very uncomfortable looking Clark. Lex smirked. His former best friend looked as out of place as his father, Lionel, would probably look on the Kent farm back in Smallville, despite his attire. Then he noticed that they were actually standing and talking with a very non-discrepant brown haired woman. While Queen seemed quite taken with her, Clark seemed upset with the situation. Puzzled, Lex made his way over to the threesome.

"Oliver," Lex announced himself, "glad you could make it."

Queen raised his head from the conversation he was having with the woman while Clark moved closer to her. Lex furrowed his brow momentarily.

"Lex, always a pleasure." Oliver nodded towards him, both knowing they'd rather not have any association with the other.

"Aren't you going to introduce me to the lady who seems to have snagged your attention?" Lex looked pointedly at the woman in question.

Oliver chuckled and put a hand to the woman's back, "Lex Luthor, this is Caly Scott, freelance reporter. Caly, this is Lex Luthor."

Caly looked to Lex, giving him a small smile and shook the hand that he offered her. Lex, taking a moment, raised the hand to his lips and kissed it, looking into the woman's brown eyes.

Scott ducked her head slightly, a light blush staining her cheeks, before taking back her hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Luthor."

"Lex, please." He watched her nod her head slightly but noticed that Clark seemed quite tense.

"Clark, you seem pretty tense tonight. Anything wrong?" He watched his former best friend flick his eyes to Caly before answering, a somewhat tense grin on his face. The young man shook his head, "No, Lex, just… you know how I feel about attending these things."

"Then why bother coming?" Lex looked between Caly and Clark, noticing Caly's easy stance and how Clark seemed to be holding himself ready to move at a moment's notice, almost as if he were a bodyguard of some sort.

Oliver noticed Lex's observation of Clark and his curiosity regarding Clark's behavior towards Chloe, err, Caly. Before he could think of creating a distraction to sidetrack Lex's curiosity, Caly excused herself from the group, stating that she wished to pay her respects to a few of the other guests, as well as get more source material for the article she was putting together for the event.

The three men watched her leave, all sporting different expressions and concealing a variety of thoughts and emotions.  
.

Another hour passed when Lex came upon Oliver Queen once again in the company of Caly Scott. Honestly, what was the man's interest in the woman? Puzzled once again, he began making his way towards them when he was intercepted by two of his investors who wanted to talk shop.

Oliver, having caught sight of Lex making his way towards them, was extremely relieved to find him caught by the people he was now talking with. Chloe, having followed his look, turned back to Oliver, "I think it's time I called it a night. He's taking far too much interest in me for my liking."

*^*^*

Throughout the evening, Oliver had been watching Chloe, in the persona of the freelance reporter that had interviewed him a few times over the years as well as covered many of the charities he'd been involved with, with mixed emotions. He had remembered their 2007 introduction that she'd spoken of during the second meeting of Watchtower and Green Arrow, just after finding Clark hovering near her a few minutes before Lex found them the first time.

Oliver couldn't help thinking that something about her had interested him even then because of how he had responded to her. With everything he knew about her now, she intrigued him so much more and on so many levels; Queen found himself wanting to spend a lot more time with her but was at a loss as to how to do so without bringing suspicion to her doorstep.

As he watched Lex making for them a second time before being sidetracked, he thought that perhaps he'd already done so.

*^*^*

Given Lex's curiosity and the attention he and Clark had already brought to Caly Scott, Oliver knew that it wouldn't be a good idea for him to accompany her to the hotel. However, Oliver wanted to discuss something with her that was best done in private and in person. Thinking that they could say they had been discussing one of his charity projects, Oliver escorted her to the coat room where they retrieved their outerwear and then out to the curb to meet his limo.

"I'd like to discuss something with you, if you don't mind, Chloe." She looked at him questioningly but nodded for him to continue as their driver made his way through traffic in the long vehicle. Oliver wasn't sure how to say what he wanted to without the possibility of offending the very independent and fierce spirited woman sitting beside him.

Chloe must have sensed his uneasiness because she placed one of her hands over his and leaned a little closer to him, "What's on your mind, Oliver? You aren't the type of person to hesitate usually." She had slid her shoes off and had her feet curled up beside her on the seat and looked as comfortable as if she were on a couch at home.

Enjoying the warmth of her hand on his and the heat of her body, he continued, deciding to just bite the bullet, "While I appreciate the help you're giving us, I feel that you aren't getting enough in return. You spend a lot of your own resources to keep track of everything, like coming to Metropolis for tonight's benefit, but I know that your finances limit you significantly in your self-appointed duties as Watchtower, which, if I may say, are staggering."

Chloe thought she saw where Oliver was going with his thought process and started to interrupt him but he gently, yet firmly, ran right over her.

"Chloe, I want to contribute to the needs Watchtower has, in all areas. I want to set up some type of fund that you can draw on for all those expenses. Think of it as me being selfish; the less time, energy and running around that you have to spend on concerning yourself with bringing in an income, the more time and energy and running around you can do as Watchtower, which, really, benefits much more than the League."

She ducked her head and pulled away from him slightly. Oliver missed the warmth of her hand and the heat of her body immediately but didn't move or take offense at her withdrawal. Chloe was obviously very self-sufficient and had been taking care of herself for years. She'd pulled herself back from nothing after the explosion of the safe house and had spent years juggling her life in order to get to where she was now. What Oliver was asking her to do was probably akin to accepting some type of charity in her way of thinking and, while not opposed to asking for help when she needed it, she did, he knew, have her pride.

Yes, there was no shame in asking for help when one needed it, however, this would be different. She'd already proven that she could do what needed to be done, but accepting his offer would allow her to back off of working so hard to actually meet the day-to-day expenses of living. It would give her a chance to actually be Watchtower without having to worry about going out as Caly Scott to bring in the income that was needed to juggle the expenses that Watchtower incurred while searching for the truth and helping the Justice League and Batman, not to mention whatever she handed over to the police or other authorities.

Would Chloe allow someone, allow him, to help her, after all these years of doing everything herself?

By this time, they had reached their destination and the limo was at the curb, the driver waiting for Oliver's signal of their conversation to be finished.

Chloe uncurled her feet from off the seat and put her shoes on before looking at Oliver again. He could tell by her eyes that she wasn't ready to make a decision on his proposal yet and he gave her an understanding smile. Flicking his eyes in the driver's direction, the driver nodded his head and got out of the limo to make his way around to the curbside door.

Wishing she would allow him to walk her to her room, he stayed in his seat when the door was opened. Before she moved to climb out of the car, he clasped one of her hands, raising it to his lips and kissed her fingers. Chloe blushed as deeply now as she did when he'd done it two years ago; much more deeply, and for an entirely different reason, he believed, than she had when Lex had done the same thing.

"You're still my Watchtower, Chloe, no matter what you decide."

*^*^*

"_You're still my Watchtower, Chloe, no matter what you decide."_

The phrase kept repeating in her head throughout the night and into the next morning. Oliver was a force to be reckoned with, in whatever form he was; businessman; Green Arrow; leader of the Justice League and, of course, a very charming, intelligent, physically fit, gorgeous, charismatic male.

Chloe had been attracted to Queen from the moment she first saw him and each time spent with him gave her more reason to stay away. Chloe's life was complicated and dangerous enough without having to add the blonde playboy and green leather clad hero to the mix. Being completely honest with herself, no matter how she truly felt about him, there was just too much at stake to become involved with him.

Chloe had sacrificed a lot to become who she was today. While she had a small circle of friends, they had no idea who she really was; the persona of Caly Scott, not to mention Watchtower, was completely unknown to them. Living such a life, it was incredibly difficult to have any type of close or intimate relationship. Given her experience with Clark and now, knowing Bruce and the guys of the Justice League, she understood how solitary the lives they had chosen, or that had chosen them, made them.

That didn't mean she spent all of her time thinking about being alone; on the contrary, it only happened once in a while. She'd been in love with Clark for years, had watched him pine after Lana all that time, and she knew how Bruce dealt with being alone, in both his personas. Throughout the years, she had come to realize that, if she did get into a relationship with someone, it would take a very special person – someone who could handle all the secrets she kept and the job she did.

Usually these moods only lasted a few minutes, sometimes an hour or two, where she found herself putting in a chick flick and reaching for a tub of her favorite ice cream. Her life was simply too hectic and busy for her to actually contemplate them for long. However, Oliver's phrase kept repeating in her head, following her into sleep and continuing into the next day.

Oliver had convinced her to have lunch with him today before he drove her to the airport to return home. Knowing this and herself, she needed to do something to preoccupy her mind drastically or she'd be in a very bitchy mood when he arrived. Oliver didn't deserve the brunt of her frustration with how life worked, so she dressed in her workout clothes and headed to the gym across the street from her hotel. A couple of hours of intense physical activity would do her some good and get that damn phrase out of her head.

She hoped.

*^*^*

"_You're still my Watchtower, Chloe, no matter what you decide."_

_God, Oliver, could you have been any more pathetically sappy?_ He chastised himself for his mouth running away from him in that last moment with Chloe, _hours ago,_ in his limo, for the umpteenth time that night. Oliver's mind refused to let him forget what he'd said to her and here he was, out on patrol as Green Arrow, in the very early morning hours, and he couldn't get his mind to forget the phrase he'd uttered.

Giving up for the night, he headed home, hoping a shower and a few hours of sleep would get his mind off the woman he'd become more and more obsessed with over the last several months. Caly… Watchtower… Chloe… Whatever persona she was, it didn't matter. She had begun haunting his thoughts much more frequently of late and it was becoming harder and harder to focus on anything other than the remarkable blonde with the amazing green eyes.

Waking to his alarm the next morning, his sheets wet with the evidence of his passionate dreams for the umpteenth night in a row, he threw them aside in a rare physical outburst of frustration, Oliver sat up in bed, throwing his legs over the side, and rubbing his face hard with both hands.

This _had_ to stop.

*^*^*

Oliver had arrived much earlier than planned, his mind completely focused on the problem of his preoccupation and obvious infatuation with Watchtower. Noting the time, he groaned to himself. Thinking for a moment, he realized that it would look really odd for him to have his driver take him elsewhere and come back and he didn't relish simply waiting in the car.

Sighing to himself once again, he got out of the limo and made his way up to Chloe's room. Knowing he was early, he didn't think about it when he knocked a second time. But he began to grow concerned when, after several minutes had passed, Chloe didn't answer the door.

Looking around, he bent down to the doorknob, his lock pick tool already in hand. A moment later, the lock clicked and he turned the knob, quickly entering the room and closing the door. The reason for Chloe's not answering the door became obvious as soon as he was in the room, as he heard water running. Unable to restrain himself, Oliver found his way to the bathroom, looking into the room and towards the shower. Not wishing for Chloe to think of him as a peeping Tom, he was about to turn to go back into the main room when he stopped at the sound that emanated from behind the semi-transparent, gauzy type curtain.

He had enough experience to recognize a woman's burgeoning gasp of desire and it coming from Chloe stopped him dead in his tracks. Oliver could see the outline of her body through the curtain and he realized that he had been correct about her having long hair. Queen could just make out the blonde length stuck to her body as one of her hands moved about her breasts, the other much lower on her body.

Knowing he was witnessing something intensely private and personal, he tried to pull himself away but it was like he was frozen in place and had no control over his body. As Chloe's hands moved about herself, her breathing becoming more pronounced and faster, Oliver blushed as he felt his own body responding to the unintended stimulation.

A vibration emanating from his pants pocket seemed to break the spell that froze him in place. But as he pulled the cell phone from his pocket and moved to exit the bathroom, he could hear Chloe reach her climax, a stuttered breath and a gasped cry; his eyes flew wide open and he dropped his cell phone on the carpet of the bedroom floor as the name she'd cried reached his ears.

"Oliver!"

*^*^*

Oliver hurriedly exited the hotel room and made his way back to his limo. A multitude of emotions and thoughts were racing through his mind and he knew that he wasn't in any shape to see Chloe at the moment. Sitting in his limo, he went over the scene he'd just been privy to.

Obviously the attraction wasn't just one sided. But how to deal with it.

He'd never been so infatuated with a woman before, but now, on top of his CEO duties and responsibilities of Queen Industries, he was also Green Arrow. Oliver's life was busy and hectic, not his own, and it was full of secrets, danger and was completely unpredictable.

After becoming Green Arrow, and especially after meeting Bruce Wayne, Oliver had come to the conclusion that the life he led would never allow him the 'luxury' of being in a committed relationship with anyone.

He snorted at himself, Oliver's closest friends were in the Justice League; he didn't have to hide from them and how could you be in an intimate, committed relationship with anyone if you were hiding a part of yourself, a huge part, from them?

Yes, Oliver was a man and had lived the playboy persona, just as Bruce Wayne did. However, while the need for the release of sexual tension was something he found very enjoyable, it was only momentary and Queen found the casual relationships he used to alleviate it to be extremely unrewarding

But Chloe knew him, all sides of him he realized. Closing his eyes, Oliver rested his head against the back of the seat for a few moments before raising his arm to look at his watch. He had to decide if he was going to face Chloe as he'd planned before the events of this morning or if he was going to be a coward and plead other business.

*^*^*

Her body trembling, her knees weak, Chloe slid down the wall of the shower to sit on the floor of the tub, head tilted backward, eyes closed against the spray that poured down her body. Two hours spent at the gym hadn't lessened her mind's preoccupation with Oliver, so she'd gone for a run with thoughts of coming back and getting ready to meet him for their planned lunch.

But the run hadn't done anything for her either; in fact, Chloe's mind and body had begun to fantasize about what it might be like to have Oliver's complete focus on her and she'd found herself completely hot and incredibly bothered by the time she'd returned to her room to shower. Having experienced unresolved sexual tension several times over the years, she knew the only way to get rid of the feeling was to masturbate. Chloe had read something somewhere years ago that suggested if you thought you were in love, to go masturbate and if it felt less after, then it wasn't real.

She'd done that, a lot, when she was in high school, because of Clark.

Chloe had used the same process a couple of times since but, unlike this time, the feelings had gone away.

Apparently she was head over heels in love with Oliver Queen, AKA another hero, a billionaire and the leader of the Justice League.

Chloe groaned, putting her face in her hands and continued to let the water from the shower rain down on her.

*^*^*

Just as Oliver was about to step out of the limo to head back to Chloe's room, his cell phone went off once more. Checking the caller ID, he found it to be one of his business assistants. His brow furrowed as the assistant told him of the contract dispute that was currently taking place in one of their conference rooms; the situation seemed to have reached a stand-still and both parties were refusing to go any further unless Mr. Queen came to personally resolve the situation.

Sighing, not even knowing, himself, if it was in relief or frustration, he ended the call. Telling his driver to take them to the airport, he called his pilot and requested the jet be placed in queue for flying back to Star City and then called Chloe.

*^*^*

Chloe sighed with relief after getting off her phone with Oliver. A moment later, she sighed again, this time in frustration. On one hand, she would have more time to figure out what was going on with her mind and her heart without having to worry about seeing Oliver today at least. On the other, she was very well aware of her feeling upset over not seeing him once more before leaving Metropolis.

However, Chloe also knew that, until she came to some type of resolution and could get her mind back on track, this infatuation with Oliver Queen would be whirling around and ambushing her thoughts significantly and, she was willing to bet, at the most inappropriate times.

*^*^*

A few days after the benefit they'd attended, Chloe had agreed to accept Oliver's proposal of letting him fund a portion of Watchtower's activities. Since Clark was still unable to come to terms with Chloe's resurrection, the easiest way to get the funds to Watchtower without leaving a paper trail, would be for Oliver to have Bart, AC or Victor drop off an envelope of cash to be used at Chloe's discretion, a couple of times a month. Even though Bart flirted insatiably with her, Watchtower actually preferred to have him be the one to drop in on her because, with his speed, he wouldn't be seen visiting her.

This was how Oliver confirmed to himself, once more, that Chloe was actually based in Star City and was patrolling for him whenever he wasn't there. Once he knew this, Queen made a note to himself that any face-to-face meetings they needed to have with Watchtower, other than those of a dire nature, would have them going to her. It was much easier, as well as less suspicious, for him to return home to Star City with his private jet, then having someone from Star City, with no real ties or business in Metropolis, to come to him.  
.

Several days later saw them both, once again, at a benefit, this time in Star City. There was no Lex Luthor or Clark Kent. There was no real tension about having to be anyone else but Oliver Queen and Chloe Sullivan, in disguise as Caly Scott, of course.

Oliver had come stag, almost positive that Chloe would be making an appearance. This would allow him to dance with his Watchtower without raising too much curiosity or suspicion. In order to dance with Chloe, Queen made sure to favor none of the women in attendance, dancing with them just as often as he did with her, not giving anyone any reason to take any pictures of he and Caly together. And, at the end of the evening, he made sure that Caly was seen leaving in a cab by herself and that he was seen getting into his limo and going home, alone, about a half an hour later.

Once home, he dismissed his driver for the night, changed into some very causal clothes and grabbed the keys to his Dente Mag Q. Several minutes later, he parked the expensive sports car a couple of blocks away in a large parking garage and began walking towards Chloe's apartment.

He'd been trying to think of anything other than seeing her again since he'd been called away on business and had been able to resist the pull of those thoughts, until he saw her tonight.

Oliver had wanted to spend the entire night dancing with her; he'd wanted to whisper into her ear about all manner of things, hear her laugh, see her incredible smile, feel the heat of her body as they danced far more intimately than they could safely have done at the benefit tonight.

The ringing of his cell phone brought him out of his musings. Stopping on the sidewalk just outside Chloe's building to check the caller ID and finding it to be Victor, he brought the phone to his ear somewhat reluctantly, knowing that he wasn't going to see Chloe tonight.

Looking up to the top floor of the three level building, he closed his eyes, his suspicions confirmed. Victor had come up with some information tonight that put another 33.1 mission on the docket. He needed to meet up with the guys and get plans together.

Opening his eyes, he could have sworn that he caught a glimpse of Chloe looking down at him from the roof top but in the blink of any eye, there wasn't anyone there. Sighing, he turned on his heel and quickly walked back to the parking garage.

*^*^*

Chloe often found herself on the roof top of the building she now called home. You couldn't see as many stars here as you could back in Smallville due to the city lights, but the night sky still offered her something to be inspired by. Coming up here usually cleared her head. Some people thought best when they were in the shower or driving along the highway or, like Clark, in a barn loft. But Chloe had gotten used to thinking under the stars.

Dancing with Oliver tonight had been … it had been absolutely wonderful, an incredibly wonderful few moments that she was sure would haunt her for the rest of her life.

Lost in the memory, she had been standing, looking out at the stars, seeing nothing but what was playing through her mind, when she heard someone's cell phone go off. Out of habit, she looked around and then over the side of the building, almost doing the classic double take when she saw Oliver stopped on the sidewalk. Ducking down as he started to look up, she took the time to observe him after he closed his eyes. He looked resigned and she wondered what the call was about.

Suddenly he opened his eyes and she ducked out of sight once again. Peering over the roof top ledge, she saw him walking quickly back to the parking garage a couple of blocks away. Several moments later, she saw a vehicle leave.

She frowned, puzzled. What had Oliver been doing here? Not to see her, surely; they had just had time to chat at the benefit and neither of them had had any information to exchange. Her mind, of course, gave her another reason that he might have come by, one her body was in complete agreement with. Letting out a huff of a breath she mentally told that part of her mind _and_ her body to shut up.

*^*^*

The information that Victor had disseminated, correlating it with what Watchtower had already provided them with, gave them a 33.1 lab that was relatively obscure. Based on the data available, whoever ran comm would have to be on location due to the lab's location as being in an area that couldn't provide them with full satellite imagery. Oliver would have to make a choice due to Clark's stand on the issue of Chloe. Either there would be Watchtower on location or there would be Boy Scout on the team.

Green Arrow, knowing that he wouldn't be able to get both on the team, knew that the wisest decision would be having Watchtower with them. The need for the information she could provide for them in real time would be better, overall, than having the abilities Clark would bring to the mission.

Still, he wished Clark would get over his attitude with Watchtower.  
.

The mission had, thus far, been a success and Watchtower was now leading 'her boys' out of the labs. They had planted the detonators strategically throughout the building, Cyborg was able to download everything from the mainframe and the personnel who were on-site were fleeing the building.

That's when things went south.

Arrow and Cyborg had cleared the building and Impulse was on stand-by near the communications van with Aquaman just yards away from his exit point.

"_Aquaman, you have two heat signatures in the corridor moving quickly to your location from behind you."_

AC was in the midst of acknowledging Watchtower's comment when there was gunfire coming over the comm. Impulse ran towards the building in preparation for backup; Arrow and Cyborg, already on their way around the large structure, stopped when the gunfire sounded.

Aquaman's yelp of pain let them all know that he'd been hit. Impulse sped inside as sounds of a struggle and more gunfire continued. Knocking the two assailants to the floor, Bart appeared at Aquaman's side.

"I've got you Dude, let's get outta here before it blows." Impulse's voice came over the comm, straining with the effort of assisting the larger man. At the door, they were met by Arrow and Cyborg and all of them did their best to help their wounded friend make it to some type of safe distance as the building began to explode.

As debris that had been shot into the air began to rain down on them, they made it to the communications van and Watchtower met them at the doors with their first-aid kit. Seeing the amount of blood flowing down AC's chest, she knew it wasn't going to be as simple as that.

"Sit him down." Oliver and Victor sat their comrade down near the back of the van, allowing AC to lean against the vehicle. Watchtower immediately started cutting off the top of his uniform, noting there was an exit wound. "Through and through, we're going to need a doctor for this."

Even as Chloe said it, she knew that AC probably wouldn't last the trip. He was bleeding far too heavily and was already going into shock. Looking towards the still crouching Green Arrow, she saw that he knew it also.

Taking a calming breath, Watchtower plunged ahead. "When we're done here, take me to the penthouse. Everything will be fine."

Oliver took off his eyewear and removed his hood, his expression showing obvious confusion at the seeming non-sequitur. Not wanting to explain, not wanting to even think about what she was doing, Chloe put one hand on each of the wounds in Aquaman's body and concentrated on her own special ability.

She heard the others gasp as the light of her healing power began to bathe AC, herself and their immediate area in bright golden light. Chloe felt her essence going into the wounds, stitching tendon, muscle, veins, tissues and skin together. As AC began to heal and strengthen, she began to weaken and die, taking on his pain and when her light started fading towards the end, Chloe fell into darkness.  
.

As AC came to, he instinctively grabbed at the body that fell into him. Blinking, he found himself holding the black clad body of Watchtower and being stared at by his teammates. Remembering the last few minutes, he looked to his chest where Oliver's hand was already wiping the blood away to find no wound.

Oliver grabbed one of Watchtower's hands, only to find her skin cold and excessively pale, even for her; searching for a heartbeat, he found none.

His shock was mirrored by his companions.

*^*^*


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Four

"_When we're done here, take me to the penthouse. Everything will be fine."_

Taking Watchtower at her word, they had all returned to the penthouse in Metropolis, putting Chloe in Oliver's bed. Oliver had taken it upon himself to clean her of the blood that Chloe had ended up getting all over her and then disrobing her of everything but her bodysuit, which he found to be a simple turtle-necked leotard with no arms, showing her shoulders, made in leather and vinyl. He left her hair braided as well, not wanting Chloe to get tangled in her hair if, _when_, she started moving around.

The other three showered and changed and then came back to Oliver's bedroom for their own part in the vigil. AC was having an incredibly hard time understanding why Watchtower had done what she'd done. While each of them knew the risks of what they did, and they would each do what was necessary to protect the other, to have someone _literally_ and without any thought for themselves, exchange their life for yours… it was… it was just beyond their ability, as the selfless people they were, to come to grips with the reality of it.  
.

Several hours later, Clark found all of them in Oliver's bedroom, looking haggard and grim. Seeing Chloe lifeless in Queen's bed had the Kryptonian seeing red. Before any of them had more than registered his presence, however, Clark had pulled Oliver up out of his chair and had him pressed hard against the wall.

"What happened? I told you – ."

Oliver had already attempted to push Clark away from him but the man didn't even budge and the other three were standing now, all of them making to come around to help pull Clark off their leader. The cacophony of sound was deafening after all the hours of near silence and they kept raising their voices, each trying to be heard over the other and Clark was going on and on about 'I told you so' and it was all just a jumble.

"ENOUGH!" In the chaos, no one had noticed Watchtower awaken and the yell brought them to a stand still. However, it seemed to take an inordinate amount of whatever energy Chloe had regained over the time she was out.

Clark let go of Oliver, letting him slump against the wall, and came to the side of the bed. AC sat down on the other side, looking a hundred questions to Chloe as she looked at all of them.

Blinking her eyes, she settled on Impulse. "Bart, could you please get me some water and… something with some sugar, I don't care, cookies, candy bar, something." Barely even nodding at her request, he was out of the room and back before anyone could do more than finish a breath. Handing her the glass, he let her drink her fill and then gave her one of the Twinkies that he kept on hand for a quick fix.

Giving him a ghost of a smile, she thanked him with a nod of her head.

Watchtower looked at AC, "Everything alright?"

AC looked down for a moment, taking a breath. Looking up he just stared at her for a moment, a myriad of emotions showing in his eyes, a log jam of words that couldn't get passed the lump in his throat.

Chloe smiled with understanding, putting a hand up to cradle his cheek. "I'm fine, AC. You would have died if I hadn't done what I did. You would have done the same for me, for any of us."

Bypassing Clark, she looked to Oliver. "How long was I out? Did I die this time?"

Before Oliver could respond, Clark grabbed her upper arms, "I told you you needed protection. What the Hell did you do, Chloe, that you can ask that?"

"Release me. _Now._" Clark had never heard Chloe use such a tone with anyone in his entire life. Shocked, his grip relaxed and she pushed him away from her.

Chloe's eyes were diamond hard and anger radiated from her. "If you ever touch me like that again, Clark, I will hurt you. Is that understood?"

Still shocked, Clark simply nodded.

"You have no right questioning what I do with my life. You do what you do without answering to anyone but yourself and you need to accept that all of us have things that we need to do and the choices we make are ours to make, right or wrong."

Turning back to Oliver, she looked at him, expecting answers to her questions.

Oliver blinked and set aside his own questions and anything else he wanted to say, "Eighteen hours and yes."

Slowly, Chloe got out of bed, paying no attention to what she was, or wasn't, wearing, or the fact that she had five men in the room with her. Having seen the rest of her clothes, Watchtower got dressed and then started for the bedroom door.

Before opening it, Watchtower looked back to them and Oliver saw heavy sadness in her eyes for just a moment before it was replaced with something normal. "Bart, care to give a girl a lift home?"

Impulse smiled, "Anything for you, Chloelicious."

And they were gone in a blur of colors and a stiff breeze.

*^*^*

Another month went by before Chloe and Oliver had another face-to-face meeting at another benefit in Metropolis and, once again, Clark was hovering over Chloe in disguise as Caly.  
.

Chloe sighed with frustration and anger. The moment she had arrived at the LuthorCorp building, Clark had attached himself to her side and he wouldn't leave her alone, no matter what she said. When Oliver had arrived, she had smiled tiredly at him and had just decided to take her leave of the event, putting it down to a bust because of Clark's behavior, when, as before, the attention of both Oliver Queen and a tense Clark Kent brought Caly Scott to the notice of Lex Luthor.

While Caly had true connections to Oliver Queen, in regards to articles of the billionaire's charitable donations and business dealings, there was no reason besides his being another reporter, for her to associate with a Kansas farm boy. Oliver Queen could claim some sort of association with him because he was a contributor to a variety of projects that Senator Kent was in support of, and Clark and he had met on several occasions thusly.

However, Clark, in or out of his _Daily Planet_ persona, had no reason to be in protective mode of a simple freelance reporter and writer.

"My, Oliver, what is so fascinating about this woman. This is the second event I've seen you at personally where you couldn't keep away from her. I heard you had her on your dance card back in Star City at some other benefit a short time ago, as well."

Oliver didn't like that Lex was keeping that much of an eye on either Caly or himself but before he could answer Lex's statement, Caly broke in.

"Mr. Luthor, it looks like the benefit for this evening is doing well. Mr. Queen and I were just discussing doing another feature article on his contributions to Senator Kent's educational reform bill. Have you heard about it?" Caly's stance was easy, her smile distracting and her question shook Lex of his curiosity for a moment.

"Yes I have, Miss Scott. It's a worthy endeavor."

"Are you planning on supporting it?" Caly was actively watching the bald billionaire, eagerly awaiting his answer.

Lex could see that Caly was a good reporter, she stroked the subject's ego but continued asking the questions she wanted answers to in a very diplomatic way.

"I'm having my legal department look into it. If it's as clear as it sounds, I don't see why I wouldn't want to contribute to the Senator's project."

At this, Caly smiled brightly and she turned giddy. "That would be wonderful, then I could use both of you for the article. Two billionaires pulling together for the betterment of educational reform. I can just see the commission I'll get for it." She finished with a laugh.

Lex and Oliver smiled, chuckling slightly, while Clark hung back, seeming uneasy about the group's conversation.

"Clark, once again you seem tense. You'll never be the reporter that Ms. Scott is if these things bother you so much. Perhaps you should think of another line of work, and let the Senator know that you'd prefer not to be invited again." Lex once again observed Clark's seeming protectiveness of the non-discrepant reporter and it forced him to take a more detailed look of the woman.

Cursing the overprotective young man's presence for something they didn't need when dealing with Lex Luthor, Oliver knew they needed a distraction because he didn't think Lex would allow Caly to excuse herself from the conversation this time.  
.

Bruce Wayne was also at the event and he'd already deduced from Clark Kent's behavior, that the woman he was following around was the mysterious Watchtower. Having been kept in the loop of everything by Green Arrow, he understood that Lex Luthor was becoming far too interested in the freelance reporter; noting Oliver's masked expression and Kent's tension, he decided to provide them with a distraction.

Wayne arrived just in time it appeared, for he noted Oliver's observation of a waiter coming towards them and his aborted movement of placing himself in the path of a full serving tray of champagne flutes.

"Lex." Bruce nodded his head towards the bald billionaire. "Oliver, Ms. Scott." He nodded towards the blonde and then smiled at the petite woman.

Inwardly sighing with relief, Caly spoke up, "Mr. Wayne, a pleasure to see you again." She extended her hand and he brought it to his lips and kissed her fingers, garnering him a smile and a nod.

"Bruce." Lex managed while he and Oliver shook hands with Gotham City's playboy.

"We were just discussing Senator Kent's educational reform bill." Oliver announced.

"Yes, I was already planning on doing an article on Mr. Queen's support of it, and then Mr. Luthor said that his lawyers were currently looking at the legislature and if, everything looked as good as it sounded, he wouldn't mind contributing to the piece himself. How about you, Mr. Wayne?"

"I've already been through all the legal aspects of it and must say that it would be a very positive piece of work to put in place."

Caly smiled and laughed, "That's two for and one undecided. If I could quote you on that, of course, Mr. Wayne." Bruce nodded his head towards her, granting his permission.

"You know, combining your opinions of the bill would make for a wonderful show of support for the nation's educational system…" The freelance reporter and writer trailed off hopefully.

Oliver laughed, "That isn't very subtle, Caly."

"I'm going to be leaving relatively early in the morning, Ms. Scott. That interview would have to be this evening, if you have a few moments." Wayne knew Oliver and Watchtower wanted to get out from under Luthor's scrutiny.

Caly smiled brilliantly, "As I'll be leaving as well, it would be perfect; I would love to, Mr. Wayne, thank you."

"Why don't I join you, then you'll have all the information you need from both of us before you leave?" Oliver questioned.

The brown-haired, petite woman blinked but recovered quickly, "That would be wonderful, if you don't mind cutting your evening short?" Oliver responded that he didn't and left to give his farewells to everyone.

Caly turned back to Lex, "Mr. Luthor, let me know what your stance is on the issue once the lawyers are finished with it, please." She smiled and offered her hand. Once again, Lex bowed over it, kissing her fingers and Caly nodded her head slightly, dropping her eyes.

The freelance reporter then excused herself to retrieve her coat. Before Bruce could stop Clark from following Watchtower, Lex engaged him in conversation and Wayne couldn't grab Kent's shoulder without making Lex even more suspicious.

Once they reached the cloak room, Clark spoke up, "Chloe –"

"_Caly_." Chloe hissed at him.

"Caly, you shouldn't have come here tonight, you knew Lex was going to be here."

"Clark, this is what I do. I keep track of Lex, just as I do all the other rich and famous; it's how I get all the information I do. And if you can't accept that, and you can't keep my identity secret, then you need to leave me alone."

She took her coat from the attendant and moved them a little further away before continuing. "I can deal with the attention of the likes of Oliver Queen and Bruce Wayne. But yours I can not; _you_ are the one putting me in danger, Clark; _your_ attention is going to get me killed!" She finished in a harsh hissed whisper and then moved towards the billionaires who were approaching them.

As each of them offered her an arm, all three nodded their goodnights to the _Daily Planet_ reporter and then slipped outside.

Clark sighed and then went looking for his mother.

None of them had paid any attention to the security camera with the flashing red light, in the corner.

*^*^*

Bruce and Oliver both felt the tension in Caly's body and, as they made their way to Queen's limo, they made small talk for whatever ears and eyes there were. However, it hadn't released any of Chloe's smothered anger or seething frustration by the time they entered the long vehicle.

When they were safely inside, with the driver directed to Bruce's hotel, Chloe let out a sigh and threw her clutch to the other side of the car before crossing her arms over her chest.

"Clark … Clark's…" She sighed, a hand rising to rest on the bridge of her nose and then carefully rub her eyes with thumb and forefinger. "He's going to get me killed." The two playboys could tell that it hurt Chloe to say that, but neither of them could disagree with her.

Oliver looked at the woman sitting beside him. Without the black outfit, with the deceptive height of her boots and the black leather jacket, he again noticed how petite Chloe really was. When he'd realized this, he had better understood Clark's concern of how he believed Chloe needed protecting; however, unlike Clark, he knew she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

"You know… maybe you should stay in Metropolis for a couple of extra days."

Chloe's eyes widened as she turned to look at him, mouth falling open, arms falling from her chest in exasperation, "Oh God, not you too!"

Oliver realized he could have worded that better and turned towards her, reaching out to stop her from moving to the other side of the car as she looked over to Bruce.

"And you? Do you have an opinion on this, also?"

Wayne was wise enough to shake his head and remain quiet.

Oliver quickly went on to explain himself.

"No, no, I mean, maybe if we did some sparring while he was watching, Cark would understand that you can take care of yourself. Maybe if he sees that, maybe he'll get off your case."

Chloe snorted. "Oliver, that would be more supportive if you actually _knew_ how well I can take care of myself."

Oliver nodded his head and chuckled slightly. "Well, that's true, but even if I haven't seen you in action, I've heard about it, and I've read about it."

Just then, the limo came to a stop at the curb of Bruce's hotel. "If you'll send me a copy of your questions, Watchtower, I'll send the answers back to you for the interview you need."

"Thanks, Bruce, I'd appreciate it. And thank you so much for the distraction, I think Oliver was thinking of dumping an entire tray of champagne on himself." Chloe told Bruce sincerely.

"No, not on me, I was going to have them land on Lex."

Chloe laughed and Bruce just shook his head.

Wayne bid them both goodbye and then made his way into the hotel. As the limo pulled away from the curb on its way to where Chloe was staying, Oliver continued with their previous conversation.

"So… how about you and I going at it tomorrow, in the penthouse?"

Chloe's heart stuttered and her mouth opened slightly, at what could be considered the double meaning of that sentence. She made herself swallow and give a full bodied laugh, wrinkling her nose slightly. "Mr. Queen, if that's a pick up line, I can't understand how you've gotten the reputation as a playboy because that was really, _reall_y bad."

Shaking his head, Oliver chuckled quietly as his cheeks colored slightly, ignoring his unintentional double entendre. "Maybe my smile is all I need? Or maybe it's just my natural charm?"

Heartbeat slowly going back to normal, Chloe laughed slightly at Oliver's embarrassment and rolled her eyes at him, "Oh yes, and maybe it's your money. Obviously it's not because of your ego because you _so_ don't have one."

Oliver couldn't help it, he laughed again. As they continued talking, a part of his mind kept thinking that maybe he really had meant to say that double entendre.

*^*^*

While Chloe had agreed on sparring at the penthouse, neither had figured on having all the boys, including Bruce, as an audience. However, thinking it would probably be a good idea for all of them to know what Chloe was capable of, they decided to continue with their plans and, shortly after changing into appropriate attire, they were getting ready to warm up when Clark arrived.

"Chloe." Clark approached his friend somewhat uncertainly.

Chloe looked at her best friend of years ago. Even though she was upset with him, she couldn't help but want to recapture the closeness they'd had before the safe house explosion made her life path change. Unable to voice anything that she hadn't already said to the 'big dump alien,' she sighed and opened her arms, inviting him to hug. Clark let out a brilliant smile and almost crushed her in a bear hug that brought back tons of memories for her. After letting her go, he looked her up and down, frowning slightly.

Interpreting the look, she rolled her eyes, "Oliver and I are going to do some sparring."

Seeing the stormy expression on Mt. Kent's face, Bruce stepped in and pulled the younger man away while Oliver and Chloe began warming up.

Even though Chloe had arrived with Oliver dressed as Caly Scott, she was now free of disguise. While she had been focused on Clark, Oliver had taken the time to thoroughly look his fill of her without any disguise, without her being unconscious, and he was incredibly pleased with what he saw. Yes, she was petite, long blonde hair in a single braid down her back, and he could see why Clark thought she might need protecting. However, he also saw evidence of the years of training she'd undergone and, coupled with regular workout sessions, her body was well honed. Chloe was in excellent shape, and, if Oliver was honest with himself, a complete feast for the eyes.

As they warmed up, Oliver spent some time watching Clark watch Chloe and saw surprise crossing the younger man's face on several occasions during her warm up. Oliver snorted, shaking his head slightly. Obviously Clark was going to be in for a rude awakening of having a friend who was no longer a damsel in distress for him to save if just the warm ups were surprising him.

Once they finished limbering up and getting their blood pumping, Oliver and Chloe faced off on the mats in some basic hand-to-hand sparring. As the pace increased, they moved flawlessly into more advanced moves. Chloe definitely knew what she was doing and proved she was more than able to defend herself against the average opponent.

Stopping briefly to retrieve a couple of well used practice staffs, they continued. Oliver was impressed with Chloe's training, strength and focus. He hadn't gotten a workout of this caliber in a long while and was thoroughly enjoying himself.

Speeding up, he raised his voice, "Come on, Watchtower. Is that all you got? I thought you told me that you could take me to the mat."

Without missing a beat, Chloe smiled, "I don't want to hurt your ego, Arrow. If I bruised you, you might not live it down."

Oliver laughed. Intelligent, quick witted, spontaneous, caring, loyal, secret keeper, always searching for the truth, unafraid of putting herself in danger to get to that truth and using it to bring justice to those who needed it. God, the woman was incredible.

"Bring it on, Sidekick. Or should I call you Shortstuff?"

Chloe smirked and took him at his word.

Oliver didn't have time for more laughing or smirking as Chloe poured on the juice and went full out on him. She was a whirling, tumbling, acrobatic dervish and it took a lot of concentration to keep up with her. The powerful connections of the staffs were sending shocks through his arms and he marveled at the strength she produced with her smaller form.

Oliver had been taught by a lot of masters and he could tell that, while Chloe hadn't been, she _was_ more than up to the challenge of protecting herself. He was incredibly pleased with not only that but that he had backed her against Clark.

Slipping on some sweat on the mat, Oliver fell sideways, twisting himself off form and off balance just enough that he wouldn't be able to significantly counter the maneuver that Chloe had already begun. She was fully committed to the swing of the staff and there wasn't anything she could do in the few seconds before the staff connected with Oliver; even if Chloe tried pulling it back, there was no way that she wouldn't either hurt herself or severely injure him.

As the staff continued its way towards him, he saw the fear for him in her eyes.

But, within the blink of those eyes, he was pushed out of the way of the staff, the expected blow never landing on him.

Struggling to a sitting position, he turned around to see Bruce supporting Chloe while Clark was sprawled beside him on the mat looking at Chloe with an absolutely dumbfounded expression. Not bothering with him, Oliver hurried over to Chloe.

Bruce had grabbed the young woman, using his strength to help lessen the impact of the pulled maneuver and was gently rubbing the muscles of her arms, knowing that the aborting of the blow would have strained her muscles more than continuing with it. Bringing her down to the mat, he urged her to lay flat on her front so that he could work on her back.

"While you have obviously had some intensive training, you'll do better with some more, Watchtower. There are ways of pulling committed blows without having the muscles cramp after." Bruce commented to Chloe matter of factly. "In fact, I think all of you would benefit from more training."

Oliver crouched down in front of Chloe. She looked up at him, her gaze filled with apology and relief. He smiled, grasping a sweaty hand with one of his. Giving her a look, panting with exertion, "You're right, you could have taken me, easily."

"Like I said, good things come in small packages, Archer." She laughed, grasping his hand back before resting her head on the mat, trying to get her breath and heartbeat back to normal after nearly killing the leader of the Justice League.

*^*^*

Oliver and Chloe had taken showers and all of them were now sitting in the living room getting to know Watchtower and Batman a bit more on a personal level – Chloe even telling them about what little she knew of her healing ability and noting that she was the only 'meteor infected' individual, besides Clark, as they didn't know yet that he wasn't from Earth, that they had probably come in contact with who wasn't insane.  
.

"So, when you healed me, you felt the … you felt like you'd gotten shot?" AC was pale under his healthy tan and no one could blame him.

Giving a look to AC, Chloe reached over to grasp the sea population lover's hand. "I feel a portion of it, yes." Watchtower shrugged. "All in all, it's a small price to pay to heal someone when it's needed."

Oliver had a feeling she wasn't telling them everything and asked his own questions. "You asked how long you were out and if you… if you'd 'died'?"

Chloe breathed a breath. "… I was actually hoping you had forgotten that part." Oliver looked at her intensely, knowing that he wasn't going to like the answers she was going to give him.

Looking at the others, he saw the same expression and thought reflected on their faces.

"Depending on what I'm healing, it takes time and a portion of my energy to recover. Healing near death injuries… or … bringing those back from death –"

Chloe let the noise of the uproar her statement caused, to die down, and then continued, "Where they have died just minutes prior – require significant energy, or more of my life force, if you will, to heal them. Each time I've healed someone or something like that, the time I've been 'dead,' has increased."

There was complete silence as the six men digested her comments.

Oliver had to know. He had to know how many times this amazing and extraordinary woman had willingly traded her life for someone else's.

Apparently he wasn't the only one because Bruce asked first.

"How many times? How many times have you literally taken someone else's place into the darkness?"

It was an interesting way of phrasing the question and Chloe answered, without much hesitation, "Four."

But after a pause, she amended, "I think."

"You think?" Bart voiced.

"I'm not certain how many times I died at the safe house actually. My memories of that incident aren't really reliable…." Watchtower trailed off, her eyes showing them that her thoughts had turned inward.  
.

After the sparring that could have ended with Oliver severely injured, Clark was forced to admit that Chloe really could take care of herself. She was too much of a good person to tell him that she had told him so but he felt like she should. However, he also recognized within himself that, even if Chloe did tell him that, he'd still feel as uncomfortable… off balance… as he did now.

Clark realized that he should feel a lot better about the situation now that he knew she could stand up to the likes of Green Arrow when it came to defending herself. He should also feel a lot less tense and burdened with worry for her, especially knowing that, if worse came to worse, she could heal herself, but he found himself … upset… instead. And he had no idea why. All of this was good, so why did he feel the way he did right now?

After an hour of watching Clark Kent brood, Oliver decided he needed to intervene. As he was beginning to raise himself off the couch, Chloe put a hand on his leg, near his knee. Looking over to her, very well aware of the heat of her hand, Chloe shook her head at him and then stood up.

Walking over to her friend standing near the floor to ceiling windows, she reached out to grasp one of Clark's arms.

When the six-foot, four-inch man turned to face her, the others in the room were struck anew with how small Chloe was in comparison to Clark and wondered at how she had gotten through all the various situations they had been talking about just moments ago, without being killed. She was so small compared to most of them actually, Bart being a notable exception, and yet she had proven that she could take care of herself, that she was a force to be reckoned with.

"Feeling a little lost? Adrift maybe?"

Clark sighed and let his chin rest on his chest for a moment before looking back to her with his brows furrowed.

Before he could say anything, Chloe spoke gently to him. "Clark, you're used to protecting people, it's who you are, it's what you do. You're used to protecting me, saving me from all the situations I've gotten myself into – with or without help. It's perfectly natural for you to feel kind of lost at the moment, knowing that I can take care of myself now.

"Think of how your parents dealt with you when you were young and how they dealt with you as your grew up. A parent does the same thing to a child that you were doing to me."

Chloe smiled and chuckled slightly before continuing, once again looking him in the eyes.

"Newsflash, Clark… I grew up while I was away and you didn't have time to adjust or process that change because you thought I was dead and you didn't get to see me change and grow. But Clark, you can stop worrying about me now. I may not need you to save me or whatever like I used to those years ago but that doesn't mean that I don't need you as my friend."

Clark hesitantly reached for her and when she didn't pull back, he pulled her into his arms, lifting her a few inches off the floor, hugging her with his eyes closed. He nodded his head into one of her shoulders. Putting her down, he let go of her and closed his eyes for a moment before sighing. Opening his eyes, he found her smiling at him, her eyes telling him that she understood.

He smiled at her before pulling her into another hug. "Thanks, Chloe."

She pulled away still smiling. "You're welcome, Clark."

*^*^*

The day after the benefit, Lex Luthor sat in his castle office going through some stills of the threesome he'd come upon shortly before Bruce Wayne had joined them. Then he moved to the pictures of the woman and Clark near the cloak room. Listening to the audio of the area had told him that Clark knew who 'Caly Scott' was and that 'Caly' was very upset with him for his behavior and inability to keep quiet about her.

What he didn't know was what Oliver Queen's interest was with Chloe Sullivan or how well the blonde billionaire knew Clark. Was she nothing more to Queen than a reporter he was familiar with? Was she playing with Oliver and Bruce as much as she was him, just using her disguise as a freelance reporter to gather information? And what type of information? What did she do with it?

Calling his head of security into his office, he continued to look at the stills from the security cameras of the LuthorCorp building.

"Yes, Mr. Luthor?"

Taking a moment more to look through the photos, he then looked up to the man currently heading his security force. "I want to know everything about a woman named Caly Scott, she attended the party last night. I want to know who she contacts, when, where, how. I want complete surveillance on her at all times.

"While you're at it, put a team on Oliver Queen. Find out what his interest in Caly Scott is and why; what's her connection to him. Find out if he's been having any unusual guests lately."

"Right away, Mr. Luthor."

Lex tossed the photos of the threesome on his desk, his security chief picking them up and beginning to walk out of the room, cell phone already in hand.

Before the man in the black suit could exit his office, Lex gave him one last set of instructions.

"Find out what her connection is to Bruce Wayne and vice versa. No surveillance on him at the moment; if he's involved somehow, I don't want to tip him off.

The man nodded his head and continued out of Lex's office.

Taking another photo from the stack that was still on his desk, he looked at the non-discrepant brown-haired woman that was supposedly Chloe Sullivan.

Studying the picture for a moment longer, he then mused aloud, "Where have you been hiding Chloe and what are you doing surfacing now? What are you up to?"

*^*^*

While Oliver had offered to order a late lunch for everyone, they had all bowed out, leaving him alone with Chloe. As they waited for it to arrive, he watched Chloe as she toured his penthouse; reading the titles of the books on the shelves, looking at knickknacks and such. When she came to a stop at a certain place among the shelves, he knew she'd found the photo of him and his parents in front of their yacht.  
.

When she came across the photo of a yacht with a man, woman and child in the foreground, Chloe knew she was looking at Oliver with his parents.

Touching the young Oliver in the picture, Chloe found herself thankful that he hadn't been lost with his parents but also very sad that he had to live without them, to have lost them both at such a young age. Even though she was now an orphan as well, she had had her father with her until her late teens.

Sinking into memories of her own younger years, she came back to herself a few moments later. Turning around to return to the common area of the penthouse, Chloe found Oliver watching her. They stared at each other, neither saying a word; the moment seeming to elongate, sliding from a mere look into blatant… something. Just before Chloe was about to try and break eye contact, the buzzer for the elevator sounded and Oliver blinked a couple of times, shaking his head as if he'd been caught in his own deep thoughts.

Turning, Oliver walked back into the common area to check the monitor to see who was requesting entry.  
.

As Chloe watched Oliver set the table, a small rectangle of glass and metal that sat near a corner beside the floor to ceiling windows that looked out on the city, she began to think that staying was a supremely bad idea. As he was turning back towards her, she decided to just grab her things and head off to her hotel room, maybe call in some room service after she took another shower.

He looked at her.

A cold shower.

*^*^*

As he turned around, Oliver could clearly see the indecision on Chloe's face. Stepping over to her, he gathered one of her hands in his and, using the remote he had stashed in his pants pocket, turned the sound system on. Throwing the remote onto the couch, Oliver then grasped her other hand and pulled her closer to him as the music started playing.

Looking into her eyes, he moved his head slightly closer, one hand going around her waist. "Should I tell you that I haven't been able to get you out of my mind for months; that, at that benefit we attended over a month ago, all I wanted to do was dance all night with only you, to whisper all manner of things into your ear and to hear you laugh and to see one of your incredible smiles?

"Would it be too much to tell you that, for uncounted nights I have dreamed of you and that I've taken more cold showers within these last months than I have my entire life?"

Chloe pulled back, her eyes wide, but Oliver didn't loosen his grasp on her. He stopped dancing, never looking away from her eyes and, for the first time, in any situation Chloe had seen him in, Oliver looked anxious, his emotions unguarded.

"I've fallen head over heels in love with you, Chloe Sullivan. And not just for Chloe, but Caly and Watchtower as well. Every single permutation of you, you have me completely.

"I'm not asking for forever, but I don't want just a night with you either."

Unnerved with her silence, he swallowed. "I need you to say something, Chloe. Please."

For one of the few times in her life, Chloe was struck speechless. Oliver watched her lips part and then she wet them, perhaps in an effort to prime her mind for something, perhaps as an invitation, perhaps as only a nervous gesture.

Oliver took it for the second 'perhaps.'

*^*^*

Chloe saw Oliver's eyes travel to her mouth and then saw his pupils dilate when she licked her lips and then he was slowly moving his head closer to hers, watching her eyes, gazing at her face, looking for any sign that Chloe didn't want what was about to happen, and then his mouth was on hers. Lightly brushing her lips and then placing a kiss on each side of her mouth. Then he was back, nibbling at her lips, nuzzling her nose with his and then going back to her mouth, inviting her to kiss him. More pressure was added, and then his tongue came out to caress her lips and Chloe opened her mouth to him, a few seconds later his tongue moved into her mouth and she was lost.

Mouths mated, tongues tangled and then the rest of their bodies got involved.

Chloe found herself slowly backing up until she came up against one of the penthouse walls. Once she was secure against it, Oliver pressed his body into hers, bringing them into full body contact. His hands were caressing her from shoulder to hip and then they were at her nape, tangling in the base of her braid. Taking his hands away from her, Chloe was momentarily confused when he pulled her braid from behind her back. As he began undoing her hair, she softly smiled at him, blushing slightly.

He looked to her eyes, smiling back. "I've wanted to run my hands through your hair since the first time I saw it." Oliver ran his hands from the nape all the way to the ends and then came up to her temple and ran his hand down to the back of her neck. Pulling her head forward, the kiss this time was much more passionate. His hand moved from her neck and hair and settled on her waist. Using both hands, Oliver pulled her into him and then pushed her into the wall with his hips, grinding himself against her, both of them letting out breathy moans at the contact and pressure.

Chloe was completely overwhelmed with everything she was experiencing. She'd kissed guys, not many but enough to know that Oliver was… he could teach her a lot and she wouldn't mind being a student, for years. He _worshipped_ her mouth and she strove to give him the same pleasure.

No one had ever worshipped her before, in any form. The way he unbraided her hair and then caressed it, it was so sensual feeling, in a 'mental' way if that made sense. The way he'd started kissing her, so tender and adoring. The way he'd caressed her…

And then he'd pulled her forward and then pushed them into the wall, crushing and grinding them together and it was all she could do not to have an orgasm right then and there. God, if this went on much longer, she'd never make it to the main event.

Oliver pulled his body away from Chloe slightly and he couldn't help but be satisfied that, not only did she groan, but her hips tried to follow him. Moving his hands, he clasped hers and pulled her with him, crossing the penthouse and making his way up the stairs, pulling her gently along with him.

Once in the bedroom, he pulled her through the door and then closed it behind them with the simple act of pushing her against it, once more drawn to her mouth. She had the sweetest mouth; taste, touch, smell it was all right there for him. He plundered it, passion burning more and more brightly and he had to stop or he'd blow, literally. Oliver hadn't been so turned on from a kiss, _just a kiss_, since he was a teenager.

Stepping back from her, he noted how wide her pupils were, her kiss bruised lips, the flush of her cheeks, the long golden waterfall of her hair around her. God, she was a sight to behold. As he moved his hands to the base of his shirt, he watched her carefully. While he was sure she wanted this as much as he did, he needed to make sure they were on the same page.

As Oliver started taking off his shirt, he saw, with just a touch of amusement, that Chloe started with her shoes. Shirt off, he started toeing off his own shoes. Motioning her over to the end of the bed, he sat down and took his socks off. Moving to his pants, he glanced over to see her taking off her shirt, pants already on the floor. Once he was finished, he extended one of his hands and then guided her to the side of the bed amidst more kissing, one hand caressing through her hair, the other her back.

He backed her down onto the bed, never breaking the kiss, then straddled her on all fours. Oliver moved one hand to shape her side, from shoulder to hip and then coming up the front, over her underwear, up her stomach, over her bra and into her hair. Soon, he moved his mouth down her neck, suckling on one side under the ear, moving down towards the collarbone and then to the valley of her breasts. While one hand caressed one breast, stroking a thumb over the nipple, his mouth sucked in the other, fabric and all, and he felt her buck against him.

God, she was so incredibly responsive, he had to grab the base of his erection; Oliver was too far gone for this to last long.

Chloe started begging him, a single word, spoken over and over again.

"Please."

From what he was hearing, Oliver wasn't the only one too far gone for this to last much longer.

Quickly using one hand, he divested himself of his boxers. When he was finished with that, he helped Chloe take off her bra and then her underwear. Fumbling open his bedside drawer, he pulled out a condom package and opened it.

While reaching down between her legs with one hand, he used his other to roll the condom into place. Oliver found Chloe's entire groin soaked with moisture and they both groaned. Straddling her, he bent to kiss her and then moved down once more to her nipples. He slowly brushed his erection against her soaked juncture and was scorched with her heat. Unable to stop himself, he plunged into her…

… and came to the incredibly shocking realization that he'd just taken a virgin.

There was no other explanation for the resistance he came across, the sudden _feel_ of something tearing inside her body to admit him to the treasure inside of her; the sensation of body temperature liquid coating him and making its way out of her body.

He pulled his head up so quickly, his eyes wide and mouth open, that he was sure, if this were a movie, this would have been a moment that had everyone rolling in the aisles.

He was aware of her hot walls spasming around him as she had her first intercourse induced orgasm and, despite the situation, Oliver couldn't help but groan and move against her, letting her muscles pulse against his impaled length. Unable to help himself, he started moving, pulling out and pushing inside of her and Chloe wrapped her legs around him, pulling him into her even further, her hips thrusting up to meet him and soon, he wasn't thinking, he was pumping into her, pushing into her harder and faster, following the directions Chloe's body was giving him.

All too soon, he could feel his testicles tightening and the spark at the base of his spine and then he felt Chloe stutter inside and he watched her body flush, her face contort into an expression of ecstatic pleasure and her insides started squeezing him, much harder this time and his own orgasm hit him seemingly out of nowhere. His rhythm halted as he thrust inside of her, hard and deep, his throat locking on a shout, eyes rolling towards the back of his head.

Oliver came back to himself as his body was slowly moving to cover Chloe's and he slid himself to the side. Her muscles still clamped onto him, Oliver pulled her closer to him, as close as he could get them and still allow them to breathe properly.

He covered her face with kisses, caressing her body, running his fingers through her hair while she cuddled and nuzzled against him, caressing him gently, tenderly, raining light kisses down on his shoulders, neck and chest.

They both groaned when Chloe's body released him and sighed as Oliver's flaccid shaft left her body.

Not wanting to move but knowing he had to, Oliver got up from the bed, caressing Chloe and motioning for her to stay where she was when she made a move to get up. Hurrying into the connected bathroom, Oliver tossed the spent condom into the trash and got a couple of hand towels and wet a couple of washcloths. Cleaning himself up, he brought the other things back with him and found Chloe sitting up in the bed, covering herself with the top sheet.

The sight made him stumble to a stop momentarily. Hesitantly, he came forward. Chloe had her head down so he sat on the side of the bed and bent down, tilting his head to the side and looking up at her face.

"Chloe?" His voice was gentle and comforting.

She looked up at him and he struggled not to suck in a gasp of air as he saw the tears in her eyes and the evidence that a couple had escaped down her cheeks.

Before he could say anything, she smiled self-consciously. "I'm sorry, Oliver. I should have told you, but I was afraid you'd stop and I wanted … I wanted you so much… I've wanted you for a long time actually. You don't have to marry me, I wasn't saving myself for anyone in particular, I just hadn't … I didn't… There just wasn't anyone besides someone in high school that I wanted to share that part of myself with. I know this probably changes things but you don't have to worry about anything – "

Oliver realized that Chloe was more than nervous, she was scared that he was angry or upset with her and it was translating to her rambling and motor-mouth behavior. He'd never seen it but Clark had mentioned it a time or two, or rather, its absence, because she hadn't done it once in his presence since 'returning from the dead.'

Knowing this was something major, Oliver did the only thing he could think of to get Chloe to understand that her concerns weren't his.

Bending forward, his mouth smothered hers and halted the words from continuing to stream from her mouth. Only meaning for the kiss to distract her so he could reassure her and they could talk about everything, he found himself spiraling into a deeper level, desire and passion flowing through him and Oliver felt himself slowly following Chloe down onto the bed.

Her arms came around his neck and he wrapped his around her, coming back up over her shoulders and gathering in her hair. Oliver left off kissing her, looking down into Chloe's face, her eyes were bright, her hair spread out around her and on her shoulders where his hands had left the strands. Slowly he leaned down, capturing her mouth once more, letting the kiss grow hungry; he could feel Chloe's body heat rising through the sheet she still had wrapped around her, feel her nipples pebble as his chest rubbed against her.

God, he was addicted to her and they'd only made love once. Oliver's need to have her again quickly consumed him and he found himself unwrapping the sheet from around Chloe's body, giving her a quick cleanup with one of the towels he'd brought out with him, as he worshipped every spot of revealed skin with hands, mouth and tongue. Suddenly Chloe's hands were pushing at his chest and as he pulled himself up from her body, she pushed him over and he fell back on the bed.

Before he could grow concerned, Chloe straddled him, a shy yet determined look and smile on her face. Oliver laughed, relieved, and smiled back. "By all means." She leaned over him, using her own hands, mouth and tongue.

Minutes, maybe hours later, he let out a strained yelp when he felt her mouth engulf his erection. Steel, hell, _diamonds_, had nothing on him and he could only drown in the pleasure of what she was doing to him. But, no matter how good it felt, and that was an understatement, he didn't want to come in her mouth; he wanted to feel her own natural vise on his length again and Oliver moved to pull her up, his hands tangled once again in her hair.

She looked up and saw the strain on his face, saw him shaking his head and she moved upwards to him. Once he was sure she was almost level with him, he motioned for her to sit. She smiled with understanding, nodding at him and then towards his bedside table. Oliver quickly produced another condom packet and ripped it open for her, letting her take it from him and roll it on to his hard length.

Chloe slowly mounted him, her hair hanging all around her. Oliver watched her face, watching it change as she impaled herself fully on him and he thrust his hips upwards. Her eyes snapped open and she leaned forward slightly, drawing guttural groans from them both and his hips jerked in response to the movement.

Slowly, they began a rhythm of give and take that worked into something harder, deeper and faster. Oliver watched the sweat running down her body, plastering her blond hair along her curves, hearing the noises she was making as she spiraled higher and higher. Overwhelmed with desire and passion, he turned them over and repositioned himself in her. At her nod, he began pounding into her, harder and deeper than they could with her on top. Once again, she wrapped her legs around his waist and he couldn't stop himself. While his bottom half was pumping into her, he lowered his top half and laved one nipple, biting it and then caressing the hurt away, feeling Chloe run her hands through his hair, hard. He moved to the other nipple and then, as he felt her body begin to tighten around him, he attacked her mouth. Just as she was about to orgasm, he changed the rhythm of his pumping and slipped a finger down to play with her clit, using his mouth to bite, suckle and caress one of her nipples.

Chloe exploded around him, both inside and out. Her internal muscles clamped down on his erection and literally ripped his orgasm from him. Their cries of completion, loud enough to probably wake the dead, mixed together just as their orgasms did.

Once again, Oliver found himself falling to cover her body, Chloe's inner muscles still clamped around him, he could feel both of their bodies pulsing at their internal connection. Rolling to the side, he gathered her to him and continued so that he was on his back and she lay on top of him.

Oliver couldn't help it, he tried to pull Chloe even closer to him, her legs falling to either side of his hips, her arms went around his neck and, surprise, surprise, she pushed into him and he felt himself jerk inside of her. She did it again and he saw stars. A third time and he was jerking his hips into hers, muscles straining all over his body, shouting out with shock as he came within her vice like cavern once more. He felt her pulse around him and then they were both shaking. Chloe raised her head, her face filled with wonder, amazement and other emotions that Oliver didn't have the mental ability to figure out right then. He looked back at her, unaware that he was completely unguarded at the moment, his eyes reflecting many of the same emotions back to her.

Slowly, Chloe laid her head back down on his chest, her ear directly over his heart.

As they both came down from… as close to heaven as any living being could probably get… Oliver knew that what he'd said to Chloe before this whole thing started, was a complete and utter lie.

Oliver Queen wanted this woman, Chloe Sullivan, AKA Caly Scott, AKA Watchtower, _forever_.

*^*^*

They must have fallen asleep because a couple of hours later, Oliver woke to find Chloe still lying atop him. He should have found it to be terribly uncomfortable but he didn't; in fact, he enjoyed the weight of Chloe's body snuggled into him, her head tucked in below the hollow of his chin, her left hand entwined with his right, her right hand settled on his left breast. Oliver noticed he still had his arms wrapped around her, meeting at the small of her back and he began to caress her once more.

Oliver also realized that their groins were still matched and, while he didn't have an erection, it wouldn't take much for him to be back inside of her, as his penis felt like it was still snuggled against her entrance. Just thinking about it made him close his eyes and struggle to keep the groan from passing his lips. However, his body had already translated the thought to desire and he felt himself hardening and beginning to push at Chloe.

Chloe moaned slightly, shifting, turning her head to the other side, dropping the hand that was on his breast, down to his arm and moving a leg so that it hiked up his torso a bit, unintentionally opening herself up more. Oliver groaned and shifted his hips, putting his hand between them to retrieve the spent condom and to adjust himself, and just like that, Chloe raised her head, blinking and then moved to look up at him.

The gentle, sweet smile she gave him was breathtaking in its own right. She blushed slightly, suddenly seeming incredibly shy and made to move off of him. Oliver held her tightly to where she was, looking at her intensely yet somehow gently.

"Uh… hi." Chloe almost whispered.

Oliver couldn't help it, he pulled her up and closer to him, his burgeoning erection sliding along her entrance, kissing her lingeringly while chuckling slightly. "Hello yourself, Angel."

Chloe fell into the kiss as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She brought both hands up to Oliver's face, cupping it in her palms before running one of them up and through his sweat dampened hair to the back of his neck. Chloe felt the newly awakened desires within her spiraling outwards into her body, her mind and tried to rein them back in.

Oliver found himself deepening the kiss, his desires spiraling outwards and upwards, his erection hardening and making its way deeper into Chloe's body. God, where was his self control!? Since he'd met this woman, it was like it was nothing; the iron control he'd placed himself under for years, to cover emotions, feelings, thoughts, desires he didn't want to deal with since the death of his parents and beyond, was like tissue paper when confronted with all things Chloe.

He groaned as Chloe shifted around him, his hips jerking into her and when she moved to let him back inside of her and he felt his bare length slide back into her wet core, they released twin shudders of need and want and… something that just lacked words.

Before either of them could rein themselves in, they were back to where they were, over two hours ago; tongues tangling, breaths mingling, giving and taking, caressing, pinching, biting, whimpering, moaning, groaning and looking into each others eyes with some emotion that was too strong for either to go against.

And both of them could feel in the other the same fear they were feeling themselves.

The fear that they were already so far into each other that it would be impossible to let the other go, for any reason. The fear that, no matter that this, whatever _this_ was, couldn't, shouldn't go anywhere, it was already too late to stop. That no matter how much neither of them wanted or needed this type of complication in their life, it was already there and nothing they did would ever be able to break it.

There was no way this could be causal; there was no way this was anything other than forever.

*^*^*

Shaken by their recent love makings, they both made to get out of bed. Chloe hesitated, assuming that Oliver would want the shower first but when he held his hand out to her with an understanding smile, she smiled back, accepting. They showered together, washing each other tenderly but with no sexual overtones and then dressed.

The late lunch that Oliver had ordered was congealed and cold and, as he tossed the containers, his thoughts were clearly elsewhere. Chloe startled him with her quietly voiced comment of needing to get to the airport for her flight back to Star City.

Turning to her, he realized that, even if they had been thrown a fast curve ball, life still continued around them, the universe hadn't halted in its tracks for the situation they now found themselves in. Stilling for a moment and then taking a couple of steps towards her before stopping, he quickly nodded his head.

"I could take you to the hotel and then to the airport." Oliver offered.

Chloe smiled very slightly, "I don't think that would be the best idea, Oliver. Caly's supposed to be a wall flower, remember." She pointed to the wig she was wearing and watched him nod his head.

They stared at one another for a moment before Chloe swallowed and cleared her throat, breaking eye contact. "Well, I … uh… I'd better get going."

As she began to turn to make her way to the elevator, Oliver stepped over to her, reaching out and taking hold of her nearest arm and pulled her around to face him. Chloe looked up to him, her eyes searching his intense gaze. While she could see that he was struggling to say what was running through his mind, Chloe knew that her own mind was just as chaotic with trying to process everything that had happened within the last few hours.

Slowly, she put the tips of her three middle fingers to his lips, shaking her head slowly. Swallowing once again, Chloe brought her gaze back up to his face after looking down to his chest. "Don't. Not right now."

Lowering her hand, she continued to look into his eyes, allowing him to see the chaos and the myriad of emotions that were going on inside her. "Let's just… let's just… take some time… try and figure out what's going on. We both have lives that require our attention, people who are counting on us …."

Chloe ran out of words and she supposed it was just as well because Oliver brought her up against him, holding her close, almost crushing her to him, laying his cheek against the top of her head before pushing her away just enough for him to dip his head and capture her mouth. The kiss was passionate, desperate and crushing. It was almost like a soldier going off to war, trying to store up as much sense memory of his significant other before being shipped out.

And then he was pushing himself away from her. Chloe pulled him back to her; she couldn't let him go, overcome with a sudden panic, a deep and unsettling feeling of foreboding, taking hold of her. But when they ran out of air, Chloe allowed him to push himself away from her this time.

Both panting, Chloe attempted to take a huge breath, fighting to keep her tears at bay as she nodded with understanding. Turning, she walked to the elevator, struggling to keep her emotions in check. She closed the mesh grate and pushed the button for the lobby of the building, all with her back to him.

Just before the elevator left the penthouse floor, she turned to him and found his intense gaze meeting hers, and then she was below his floor.

*^*^*

_Three days later…_

While Oliver Queen didn't have any personal security details shadowing his every step, for obvious reasons, Queen Industries' facilities did. It was that aspect of Queen's life that brought his attention to the fact that Lex must have him under intense surveillance. Knowing that Lex would have done it sooner or later, Oliver was still concerned that Chloe had been compromised and he made sure to warn the other League members of this complication for when they needed to see or communicate with him.

Using the same secured line within his office in Queen Industries, Oliver tried to get hold of Watchtower to let her know that Lex might be having her shadowed as well. Unable to reach her via phone or communications link, he sent an encrypted email with the information as well as an 'order' to let him know her status.

He actually had to chuckle at himself for that as he didn't think Chloe would respond to the order really. But he hoped she'd let him know how she was doing.  
.

Twenty-four hours later, after having checked in with Bruce and found that someone had been looking into his connections with Caly and that his own communications with Watchtower weren't being responded to either, Oliver was officially worried. He'd grown more and more concerned as each hour passed in silence from her. Oliver decided that the easiest way to check up on her would be to send Bart; Impulse could get in and out of her place without anyone seeing him entering or leaving the building.  
.

Bart was back in minutes and his news wasn't good.

*^*^*


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Five

Calling the other three core League members, they all met at the headquarters in Star City, where Bart gave them the story he'd already told Oliver.

"The place was bombed; there wasn't anything left in there. The entire third floor apartment is gone, guys."

The police had been called when Chloe's neighbors had complained of excessive noise, sounds of fighting and a 'bunch of men in black' storming the apartment. Before they'd gotten there however, the entire apartment had apparently been the product of an explosion. The fire department had shown up just minutes after the police but the fire was too hot and involved to do anything but save the neighboring apartments and making sure the roof didn't collapse on the building.

Canvassing the area had gotten the League very little actual useful information. Victor hacked into the police department database and found that the apartment fire had been ruled arson as it appeared that it had been wired to completely obliterate anything and anyone in the place. The investigating officers and firefighters had been overheard as jokingly saying it looked like some type of auto-destruct setup like you'd find in some super spy movie and that whomever had done it, did it with surgical like precision.

Five days later, as all but Bruce were in the penthouse back in Metropolis, they were gathered around Oliver's desk going through a bunch of data that Victor had put together for them when something started beeping. Clark's hearing zoomed in on the source before anyone had a chance to look around and he led them to a black USB storage stick that sat on the shelf next to the picture of a young Oliver with his parents in front of their yacht.

*^*^*

Oliver picked up the storage device _knowing_ that it had to be from Watchtower and quickly went over to the computer station and plugged it in.

Whatever information it contained would have to be looked at later as there was a video that immediately began to play.

Chloe, dressed as Watchtower, complete with wrap around shades, filled the screen.

**"_If you boys are watching this, then something has happened to me. Whether it was death, kidnapping or my having to go underground, I don't know and I want all of you to know that I don't blame any of you for anything._**

**"_This USB holds the location of two backup storage facilities for everything that was in my apartment. If I was able, that apartment is no longer as I spent a lot of money and time making sure that, if something happened to me, the information there would be destroyed. If that isn't so, the computers are completely secured and you'll need the passwords that I've provided. By secured I mean that if they are not accessed correctly, and aren't accessed within the next three days, the data in them will be destroyed – they are also wired for self-destruction._**

**"_My apartment has a few security cameras within it as well as a couple that records what happens outside the building. If whatever happened, happened at the apartment, the two storage facilities would have some type of record of the incident up until the apartment was destroyed, of course._**

**"_If I had to go underground, for whatever reason, I will attempt to contact HQ, but it won't be soon. As Green Arrow noted at our first meeting, I'm a bit on the paranoid side." _**She smirked at that.

For the first time, Watchtower seemed uncertain as she hesitated for a moment and then continued, in a much more intimate tone. **_"Guys, don't let my disappearance, in whatever form or shape it took, stop you from doing what you've been doing. You've accomplished so much in the short time you've all been together. My life has been spent in the pursuit of truth and I have no regrets in doing that. The sacrifices I have made have been more than worth it and I truly wouldn't change anything if it meant that what I've accomplished would be lessened._**

**"_Don't let this defeat you. Truth and justice must come first; there are too many people out there who need it, who are counting on you to help them."_**

With that, Watchtower ended the video.  
.

Silence reined for several moments after the video as each of them appeared stuck in their own thoughts. Oliver fought to keep all of the emotions he was feeling, shoved deep inside himself; swallowing almost convulsively to hold in the primal scream of frustration, anger and loss from ripping itself out of his throat.

His voice, when it finally broke the quiet of the room, was clipped and hard. "Alright, let's find out where the storage facilities are and then see if there's any video we can use to find out what happened." When the others glanced at him, Oliver's eyes were intense and hard, his jaw clenched.

*^*^*

One facility was in Seattle and the second was in Washington, DC. As they had been in Metropolis, Oliver opted to take them to the one in DC. The storage area was just a tiny, closet type space, in a rented facility. Not bothering with any of the hard copy information for the moment, Victor went straight for the computer and once passed Watchtower's security measures, he immediately downloaded everything. It would be easier to go through the information on the plane and at the clock tower.

Back on the plane, Victor located the security files and brought them up on the screen. Spending several minutes syncing the cameras with Chloe's communicator, he then rewound everything and started at the beginning for the others to view.  
.

Chloe had been going through the latest results of her information gathering programs when a buzzing sound interrupted her. Throwing her head up to look at the security monitor, she saw a small force of men dressed in black uniforms, gathering on the rooftop of her apartment building.

Quickly keying in the auto-destruct sequence for the apartment on her computer, Chloe grabbed her communicator knowing that it would start recording whatever it could capture, she then moved to the weapons rack that was against the nearest wall and put on a belt bristling with throwing knives. Securing a harness around her torso that carried a set of nunchaku's, a taser and some throwing stars, she then threw herself into action as the men breached her apartment – her objective, to kill or disable as many of her attackers as possible and to escape.  
.

Back on the plane, the League watched as Watchtower went into action, now focusing a lot more on the audio they were hearing rather than the poor video quality of the captured hard fighting.

Men were calling out to each other as Chloe made sounds that came from hard fighting. Sounds of struggle and then yelps of pain from male throats came over the speakers. A couple of oaths from Watchtower, sounds of gunfire, knives being thrown, painful indrawn breaths signaling that Chloe wasn't free from being wounded. More sounds of a struggle, men cursing, Chloe's indrawn breath on a silenced yelp of pain and then static.

A moment of silence and then Victor was typing out commands on the keyboard. "I'm going to try and clean up the audio, lighten the video, see if we can pick up any details."

For the next forty minutes, nothing was said among them, only the sounds of Watchtower and her assailants.

"Ok, let's try this."

Once again, the video was started and they watched Chloe, dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, her long blonde hair braided and laying against her back, get ready for battle and then the men breach her apartment. They watched as she sent knives off camera, hearing the groans of the men they had come in contact with. As her assailants charged her, the League saw her become the woman they saw sparring with Oliver that first time, except this time she was deadly, not caring about the people she faced or the damage or death she caused.

While she was fighting with one in front, they saw another at her back but before he could do anything, she thrust a knife in to the throat of the man in front of her and turned to the one behind, catching his knife arm in a kick that sent the weapon flying off camera to the right. Gunfire sounded and Chloe grimaced, breath hitching on a strangled cry of pain, as blood blossomed on her left shoulder; when she turned to retaliate, they saw it was a through and through because there was blood on her back as well. The knife she had thrown off camera appeared to find its target, a male groan and a thunk as a body hit the floor almost simultaneously from elsewhere in the apartment.

Something happened off camera because one of Chloe's assailants appeared to collapse for no reason while Watchtower hurried off camera in the other direction.

They could see sparks coming from one of the computers and just off camera, there was a fire starting where the banks of her filing cabinets were. When the camera went offline, all they had was their imaginations to put together images with the sounds that were still playing over the speakers.

Another hitched breath from Chloe told them she'd either been wounded again or the bullet wound she had gotten earlier had been disturbed and then the sounds of a struggle and cursing. Watchtower's breath seemed to stutter on a barely silenced cry of pain and then the static of the end of the communication as the computers went offline.  
.

Another moment of silence was broken when Clark told them to play it again. The others looked over to him, understanding that they had to go through it again, it being their only clue as to who had kidnapped Chloe, but not wanting to watch their comrade go through her fight for survival once again.

While each of them had been in such battles, watching it, watching someone else doing it, for real – not something out of a movie – was difficult. When it was them, they were there in the moment, doing what needed to be done. They weren't bystanders of their own fight, they were active participants. It gave them a completely new appreciation for what Watchtower must go through whenever she was watching over them, whether it was the footage of Green Arrow's or Batman's eyewear sending the images, or just all of their communicators sending audio, back to her when things got dicey.

When they came to the point in the playback where the assailant had seemed to just collapse on his own, Clark called for a halt in the playback. "There's something there but I'm having a hard time filtering it out with all the sounds. Any way to clean it up a bit?"

Cyborg worked on the audio again for several minutes before replaying it.

While none of them could make out what had grabbed Clark's attention, whatever Victor had done was obviously enough for Clark's own abilities to decipher the rest, for Clark's expression grew stormy, jaw clenching.

His eyes flashing, he looked at the rest of them.

"Lex."

*^*^*

The man who'd shot Chloe had been killed immediately. Clark said he thought the man probably wouldn't have been if the leader of the kidnappers hadn't been reporting to Lex via his cell at the time – it happened when Lex shouted at the man that he thought he had paid for professionals and since 'the woman' was now damaged, the price for the job had just been dropped, significantly.

"She was bleeding badly from that shoulder wound; we could try and trace her through that." Victor reminded them. "Unless…"

The others immediately thought of Watchtower's healing of AC but struggled with the possibility of her having bled to death.

Oliver nodded at the comment and added his own thought, "And since we know that Lex is the one who had her kidnapped, if we can keep him under surveillance, he should lead us right to her."

Before any of them could comment further, Clark interrupted. "I don't think they were successful."

The other men turned to look at him, Oliver looking impatient.

"Victor, rewind the last couple of minutes please."

Cyborg complied and all of them listened to what they thought was Watchtower's capture, but after Clark's comment, they weren't sure.

"Can you clean that up and enhance it more, Vic?" Oliver questioned the computer expert.

"I'll do what I can."

After another half an hour, where the others grabbed some drinks and food from the small airplane kitchen, Bart taking some to Victor, Cyborg called them over.

The last few minutes of the audio were a revelation actually. It appeared that Chloe had been able to get passed her pursuers outside the apartment building; the silenced cry of pain, probably from her jostling the bullet wound, was followed by the revving of a single motorcycle and then complete static as the apartment exploded, taking out the communication's connection to her earwig.

They all sat back, figuratively, some literally, for a few moments.

Bart was the one to break the silence. "So, Chloelicious is alive, probably gone underground. And probably being hunted."

Oliver nodded, agreeing to Bart's assessment. "That's why we're under surveillance, Lex is hoping she'll contact one of us. But Watchtower's too smart for that." Oliver thought for several moments while the others popped in with their own comments.

"What I don't understand is why he tried to kidnap her, I don't think we've been under surveillance that long. What made him want to grab her so quickly instead of just watching her, finding out who she was in contact with."

"I think I know the answer to that." Victor's voice stopped Oliver from continuing on with his own thought process. "I've been going through the information that Watchtower was looking at that evening. I got further than she did."

Victor pulled up what he'd found, putting it on the monitors.

It was a succession of stills from a security camera at one of the LuthorCorp buildings. Watchtower holding her side, clearly in pain and moving down a hallway; Watchtower crouched down low in a dark corner, blood seeping from a wound in her side; her hand covering the wound; the hand beginning to glow; the glow intensifying; the glow dying; and then Watchtower, moving much more easily, escaping.

Oliver closed his eyes, hand going to the bridge of his nose, as Victor stated the obvious.

"Lex knows about Watchtower's healing ability."

"How did he find out Watchtower was Chloe and what does that mean for us?" Oliver stated.  
.

Green Arrow gave the job of first shift of watching Lex, to Bart, letting him know that he'd be relieved by someone in a few hours and the teenager took off with a blur of colors and burst of wind, knowing that the sooner he got to watching Lex, the sooner they might find Watchtower or be able to take baldy down.

Once back at the clock tower in Metropolis, the others discussed a schedule for spying on Lex and continued to go over all the new data Watchtower had been going through that night, inputting everything into the database she had created for them and then continuing with their other duties. It didn't matter to the rest of the world what had happened to Chloe and no matter what the Justice League was going through, they still had other things to concern them.

*^*^*

Lionel strode into his son's office at LuthorCorp, bristling with frustration.

"I've just been informed that you're supposedly trying to kidnap a woman who you believe to be Chloe Sullivan."

Lex looked up to his father without changing expression. "That's right, Father." Looking back to his paperwork on the desk, he smirked before looking back up. "You know, there's no statute of limitations for murder."

Lionel's expression grew hard. "If you think you can pull some woman off the street to pose as Ms. Sullivan to testify against me, I'd say you have another think coming, son. I have been acquitted of those charges, because of Miss Sullivan's demise. I can't be tried for that crime, a crime I am completely innocent of, again; it's against the law."

"And we all know what an upstanding citizen you are, don't we, Dad?" Lionel had come to stand near the floor to ceiling windows, looking out at the Metropolis skyline and turned to face his son at this last.

"Lex, son, I don't know why you are trying to do this, opening old wounds and involving an innocent woman in this dispute between us but – "

"This isn't a dispute, Father, and the woman isn't innocent nor is she someone just off the street. It's Chloe and she's been going by the name 'Caly Scott' and is the infamous 'Watchtower,' that's been causing me _and you_ nothing but problems, for the last several years." Lex had opened his top desk drawer and pulled out several pictures, standing up and tossing them on his desk.

Lionel looked to the photos. His curiosity getting the better of him, he came closer to the desk and picked them up. Flipping through them, he found some stills of a brown-haired, brown-eyed woman at some type of event, flanked by Oliver Queen and Clark Kent, then another of the same woman entering an apartment; the next was of an older Chloe Sullivan with long braided hair exiting the same apartment building; the last was of a woman, all in black, striding down a LuthorCorp hallway, evidently leaving after some breaking and entering.

His mind working quickly, Lionel kept his reactions to himself. "What makes you think this 'Watchtower' is this 'Caly Scott?'"

"I've been having _Chloe_ watched. At the same time, I've been trying to track down Watchtower." Lex moved to his mini bar, pouring himself some scotch while offering his father some. Lex knew Lionel wouldn't accept any because he didn't want to take the chance that Lex would poison him as he had his own son those years ago.

"I find it interesting that Watchtower was sighted not far from Chloe's apartment building. And when my security force tried to apprehend Chloe, she showed considerable skill at killing several of them." Lex glanced to his father, meaningly.

Lionel looked to his son, "I take it, your 'Caly Scott' got away then?" He did so enjoy tormenting Lex.

Lex, however, didn't rise to the goad. "She was shot. We'll find her; it's only a matter of time." He didn't say anything about Watchtower's apparent healing ability and, if that was true and Caly was Watchtower/Chloe, Lex was certain that she'd healed herself of whatever damage she had sustained during the failed abduction.

"And what do you plan on doing with her when you find her? If this is Ms. Sullivan and she is this 'Watchtower,' do you think that she'll be content with stopping at just trying to put me away for murder – something we already know I'm innocent of?"

Lex smirked at his father once again. "Father, you aren't innocent of anything." He walked back to his desk from the mini bar after pouring himself a bit more of his favored alcohol. "I have my own plans for Chloe."

Lionel looked at his son but couldn't read anything from his expression, his mind continuing to go over everything. Knowing that he wouldn't get anything further from his son on the subject, he decided to pull his own security into the equation of getting ahold of Ms. Sullivan. If Lex apprehended her first, he would probably use her against him.

His mind thus preoccupied with the problem, Lionel left his son's office.

Lex smiled with dark humor, looking at Lionel's back as he exited the office.

"Goodbye, Father

*^*^*

After some time in his own office, putting things into play with shadowing his son's actions regarding Chloe Sullivan, Lionel requested his car to be readied.

The senior Luthor made his way down to the parking garage, one of his body guards meeting him near the elevator, and they headed to the sleek, black limo together. The driver was already at the wheel, leaving the body guard to open the door for Lionel, closing it behind him after the older man was safely inside. As the guard made to get into the passenger side of the cab, the driver pulled a large gun with a silencer affixed to the end of the barrel from his coat and put two bullets into the man.

Before Lionel could react to the muffled gunshots, the driver turned towards the cargo area of the vehicle and fired four bullets into the elder Luthor.

The body of Lionel's personal security was found in the parking garage ten minutes later. By the time the alert was put out, the limo had been left in an abandoned lot and Lionel was very dead.

*^*^*

While the murder of Lionel Luthor was incredibly shocking news to the business community and the world at large, it was little more that the proverbial blip on the radar screen for the Justice League.

Over the next three weeks, they passed all the information they'd found to Batman, keeping him in the loop with their search for Watchtower; continued to keep Lex under surveillance, obviously much better then he was able to do with them; ran down every lead they could find in regards to any of Chloe's personas and watched Oliver with growing concern.

While the disappearance of Watchtower weighed heavily on all of them, Oliver seemed to be taking it significantly harder. He spent every waking moment going over every single bit of data that any of them had pulled together; showing up at all hours to relieve whomever from, or to check on, surveillance of Lex and was flying between Star City and Metropolis at least three times a week so that he could patrol his home city in the hopes of finding a lead on Chloe.

Queen Industries' business had basically been delegated to his associates, something that was entirely unheard of, with specific instructions not to bother him unless it was of dire importance. If it wasn't for his team, Oliver wouldn't have 'wasted' time with any of the necessities of life such as sleeping, eating or shaving. As it was, he was doing very little of the first two; the only reason he was doing the third at all was because Green Arrow suddenly appearing with the makings of a beard would have been noted.

Queen's playboy persona was as established as Bruce Wayne's; always arriving at any function with a statuesque woman on his arm, sometimes two. He was always in the society pages and in several tabloids every week. However, unlike Wayne, Queen had actually been rumored to be 'in love' a time or two. The playboy he had been in his younger days wasn't who he really was since becoming the Green Arrow, of course, but he always played it.

It was this last, when the press started to speculate on Oliver's lack of companions over the last few months, that the League, until then hadn't thought anything about, started cluing in on their leader's overall behavior.

*^*^*

If it hadn't been for Clark, Oliver Queen would have been outed as the Green Arrow that night. As it was, it was a very near thing. It also forced the others to pin Oliver down on what was going on with him.  
.

Clark and the rest of the League had made a habit of checking in with Oliver every morning before they started their duties. However, Bart had decided to run by the Clock Tower one evening, very late, before heading back to his own city. Not finding Oliver in the penthouse, he assumed that Green Arrow was out on patrol. However, their leader's gear room was wide open, something that none of them had ever known him to do when he wasn't right there, and Green Arrow paraphernalia was spilled all over inside it on the floor.

Concerned, Bart checked out the rest of the penthouse and noticed that Oliver's bedroom didn't look like it had been cleaned since Watchtower's disappearance, clothes overflowing the laundry hamper, dresser drawers pulled askew, closet doors opened with clothes on the floor and hangers thrown haphazardly around.

Blinking at the mess, Bart ran out of the Clock Tower and did a speedy round of Metropolis. Not finding Green Arrow on patrol, Impulse decided to call in the rest of the guys.  
.

While Bart called the rest of the team, Clark ran around the city, using his x-ray vision to check inside buildings and his super hearing to listen for any signs of wrong doings that Green Arrow might be trying to stop. A half an hour later, Clark came upon the restrained and unconscious form of the green leather clad hero in an alley near Suicide Slums.

Using his abilities, Clark checked Oliver over for broken bones and internal injuries but interrupted himself when his hearing picked up sounds coming their way. Breaking the bindings at Oliver's wrists and ankles, Clark eased his friend's body into his arms and supersped them back to the Clock Tower just before the gang members came into view.

*^*^*

After speaking with Bruce over the secure line and Clark's assertion that Oliver appeared fine except for some contusions and lacerations, the rest of the team were heartened about their friend and leader's health. However, they decided to stay the night in the penthouse regardless. Bruce surmised that the reason Oliver was still unconscious, given that Clark didn't find anything serious and Bart's report of the condition of the penthouse, was that he was completely and utterly exhausted.

While Clark said that he would remain at Oliver's bedside to monitor his condition throughout the night, the others argued about how to proceed if he was still unconscious in the morning. At this point, Bruce suggested they wait to decide what, if any, action was to take place. With that agreed, AC sacked out in one of the guest rooms while Clark stationed himself near Oliver and Bart ran out to relieve Victor from his shift of surveillance of Lex.

Throughout the night, Clark checked Oliver's vitals and x-rayed him several times, keeping track of and looking for any and all changes that pointed to something more serious than what they were aware of.

*^*^*

As morning sun drifted into the penthouse and the other two league members came out to the living room, Clark continued to make breakfast. AC made himself useful by setting the table while Victor checked through the computer programs that ran constantly. Clark brought everything to the table and AC filled up a plate for himself, grabbed a few bottles of water and then headed to the elevator.

Half an hour later, as Clark and Victor were cleaning up from their own breakfast, Bart came speeding into the kitchen. Loading up a plate with a large stack of pancakes, bacon, sausage and hash browns, he moved to the table. Having been relieved by AC, Bart gave his report of Lex's movements while he inhaled his meal, getting up for seconds and thirds before he was finished – and there wasn't much to tell.

Since Oliver was still asleep, the three decided to give Bruce a call, bringing AC in via his communicator link. However, before they could get too far into the discussion, Clark tipped his head towards the master bedroom.

"He's awake."

*^*^*

Oliver was aware that he was running on fumes but he refused to stop; he was obsessed with finding Watchtower. The longer they went without some type of communication from her, the greater he worried about the woman who had so unraveled him. Oliver couldn't help thinking that it also meant a bigger chance of her being found by Lex and his goons, without he and the team to watch her back in some way.

Granted, Clark's and his combined interest of Caly Scott had definitely put her in the path of Lex's curiosity. Oliver wasn't only frustrated with the entire situation but angry at Clark and only slightly less so with himself. He had spent hours over the last weeks going over everything that he had done, telling himself that he should have done _this_ or _that_ instead.

Oliver was so focused on the situation that he wasn't concerned with anything else. The state of his personal areas spoke loudly of that as well as last night's patrol.  
.

He came awake very slowly, like a diver coming up from the pressured black depths of the sea. When he finally opened his eyes, Oliver felt as it there were weights attached to them, it was so hard to open them; eyelids fluttering, his blurry vision clearing and focusing seemed to take an excessively long time. Taking in his surroundings, Oliver realized that he was in his own room at the penthouse and his fuzzy mind came to the slow conclusion that either he made it home on auto-pilot last night or that one of the guys must have brought him back.

Moving, he let out a groan and grabbed at his midsection. Looking down at himself, Oliver found several bruises on various places of his body and, for the life of him, he couldn't remember how he got them. Taking several minutes to get out of bed, he began making his way to the bathroom to look at what the damage was.

Before he could get there however, there was a knock at his bedroom door which almost immediately opened without a word from him. Looking around, Oliver found Clark looking at him.

"Clark."

"Morning, Oliver. How are you feeling?"

Oliver blinked at him before sighing, "Like I went a couple of rounds with something. Are the guys here?"

"Understandable, considering the shape I found you in last night. Bruce is on the plasma with Bart and Victor in the living room. AC's covering Lex, so he's on the communications link."

Oliver attempted to hide a wince at the implication of the teleconference regarding his welfare. Sighing, he moved to his dresser, finding a pair of sweats, he pulled them on with another groan; Oliver didn't want to bother with a shirt but he didn't want to showcase the damage of what Clark had retrieved him from last night… whatever that was… and he was also aware that he'd lost a significant amount of weight as well.

Grabbing a wrinkled button down shirt, he slowly made his way out to the living room. Best get this over with as quickly as possible.

*^*^*

While Clark was with Oliver, Bruce posed his thoughts to the rest of the team.

"Granted, I don't spend as much time with Oliver as the rest of you, but I think Watchtower's disappearance is having a greater impact on him than the rest of us." The other three League members made sounds of agreement but it was Victor who stated it.

"You don't have to go around the topic, Bruce. Oliver's been off a bit over the last few months, however, it's gotten significantly worse since she's been gone."

"Let's face it dudes, Oliver's in love with Chl… err… Watchtower." Bart summed it up.

AC's snort came over the line completely intact.

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes." Victor commented.

"The question is, are any of you uncomfortable with that? Should there be any reasons for this to be a concern, other than the obvious?" Bruce questioned.

"I think if he just came out and told us, it would relieve a lot of the tension that's been building, in him and within the team. If we could get him to admit that Watchtower's disappearance is –"

"It's making me crazy." Oliver interrupted AC.

Clark had been listening to the others' conversation. Deciding that his friend needed to hear it, he had purposely allowed Oliver to walk first into the living room. They had been able to get within easy conversation range of the others in the living room without being noticed and his friend had heard Bart's comment and the replies that went after.

Since Oliver was the subject of the discussion and now understood that the team had guessed, correctly, what was causing his behavior, Oliver thought he might as well admit to it so they could get back to business.

Deciding to take the bull by the horns, the leader of the Justice League laid it out for his friends, hoping they'd let it go without too much discussion or trouble.

"Look… …" Actually, laying it out for them was a lot harder when they were all looking at him then it was when he was telling them in his mind.

"You love her." Bart said, definitely a statement and not a question.

Oliver sighed, closed his eyes and then nodded his head, looking back to those in front of him.

"That's fine with us, but you gotta pull your shit together, Dude." Bart continued.

"You're endangering yourself and the team, Oliver. You need to pull yourself together if we're going to find Watchtower and if you're strung out with exhaustion and your head isn't in the right place for this, you aren't going to be any use to us or _her_." Victor put in.

Queen nodded with understanding. He sighed and then put his hand up to the bridge of his nose. "Listen, I… I owe you guys an apology and an explanation but I just don't know what to say."

"Given the rumors that are floating around, about your lack of 'companions,' I suppose we should ask if this is actually real." AC asked over the comm.

Oliver nodded but said the answer out loud for AC's benefit since he didn't have access to video.

"This isn't just a long term fuck buddy thing is it? You're a playboy, Boss, and we don't want that affecting Watchtower, personally or team wise." Bart, as ever, was blunt.

Oliver's jaw clenched but he understood the need for what Bart was saying as well as implying. Swallowing and taking a deep breath, he looked at the youngest team member. "It's real, Bart." Taking a deep breath, he continued. "After the sparring session, we spent the entire afternoon together. Both of us were pretty shaken by … it. Neither of us were looking for this; it's a complication… a situation that we weren't prepared to be involved in.

"In fact, we didn't really talk about it… but we couldn't…" Oliver shook his head. "It's complicated and even though we parted with a lot unresolved and didn't talk about it, we both felt the same."

His shirt wasn't buttoned and when he threw his head back and moved the shirt to put his hands on his hips, the others saw what Clark was already aware of. Obviously, Oliver's state of mind was also showing on his body as it appeared that, over the time Chloe was missing, Oliver had lost at least fifteen pounds. Given that Oliver was in great shape, he didn't have the body fat to lose.

"You've lost weight, Oliver." Bruce stated the obvious.

The man in question raised his head back up and looked at himself, nodding his head. Looking back to his friends, he let his emotional state reflect in his eyes. "We need to get her back."

"We will, Oliver. We will." Clark put a hand on Oliver's shoulder, the others sharing the sentiment.

*^*^*


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Six

During the month of self-imposed silence with everyone, Chloe had had to create another new identity. She had been planning for such an event before she had taken up the mantel of Watchtower, but implementing it was something she had never really wanted to do. However, knowing that Lex Luthor was after her, Chloe had to do it no matter the pain and sacrifice it would cause her.

Moments after getting out of her apartment that night, Chloe had needed to stop in order to heal herself. She wasn't safe, still too close to Lex's security force, but if she didn't heal now, she'd pass out and either die of blood loss or be captured.

The healing itself almost sent her into unconsciousness and Chloe fought tooth and nail to drink from the water bottle that had been stashed in one of the motorcycle's saddlebags. Eating the energy bar made her even more nauseous and she struggled to keep from vomiting. Almost seeing double, she had gotten back on the bike and drove south, as fast and as far as she could before the fatigue from the healing was too much.

The rest area wasn't much, just a couple of pay phones and the bathrooms. But there were a few places that were obviously used by transients as camping spots and Chloe made for one. Parking her bike near a large tree and securing it with a state of the art security system, she placed her small form between the tree and the bike, weapons at hand, and fell asleep.

When she awoke several hours later, Chloe immediately took in her surroundings. Having come to without any movement, she barely opened her eyes, looking over the area and then using her hearing to cue into anything that was out of line of sight. It seemed that she'd been ignored, except for the two squirrels that were chattering around on the ground near her, looking for whatever was edible.

Startling them, she rose from her spot into a full body stretch. Now that she was refreshed and her mind and body no longer numbed with the energy drain of her healing and the pain of her wounds, Chloe went back to the rest area proper to find out exactly where she was.

_San Luis Obispo._

*^*^*

Chloe stayed the night in Glendale, her motorcycle in a parking garage not even close to the no-named motel that she had paid cash for. Half of that night was spent making plans for the morrow, eating take-out from some pizza place and covertly looking out the window to see if there was anything she needed to be on guard for. The other half found her tossing and turning on the lumpy mattress, thinking about things she couldn't do anything about; about a man that she shouldn't focus on, trying to forget the feelings that she'd felt when she was with him and knowing that she shouldn't ever plan on seeing or contacting him ever again.  
.

The next day, Chloe traded the motorcycle for the car that was in storage, packing the trunk full of items that she would need. She exchanged her current Blueberry for a new one, knowing that Lex Luthor would spare no expense to get hold of any information pertaining to any of her previous personas. Since she hadn't used this wireless handheld communication device yet, this Blueberry was entirely clean and couldn't be tracked to her. Grabbing one of the new laptops that were in the storage area, she unboxed it, grabbing a variety of accessories that Chloe knew she would need and then a handful of 'burn' phones.

Chloe knew it was Lex that was after her. Despite knowing that Lionel was now dead, she believed that Lex had tried abducting her for his own purposes and that they had nothing to do with his father. Chloe dearly wanted to get in touch with the guys to find out if they knew why and to let them know that she was still alive, not to mention…

_Don't go there, Chloe._ She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the thoughts that refused to leave her regarding the blonde billionaire.

Double checking her inventory, she made a mental note to make sure to replace the items after getting this new life established or after Lex was no longer a threat, whichever came first, before closing the garage type door to the storage area.

A few miles later, Chloe pulled into the parking area of a gas station and made her way to the public restroom where she quickly changed and then put a blonde wig and make-up on. The wig was styled similarly to the brown one she wore as Caly but this time she had blue contacts to go with it. Getting back into the car, she pulled up to the pumps and filled the tank, going inside to pay and get some drinks and food for the trip.

Chloe planned on spending the night in Phoenix, Arizona, before continuing on to Austin, Texas.  
.

Two days later found the petite woman in Austin where she purchased several plane tickets to a variety of locations – to Melbourne, Australia, via Los Angeles, California; to New York; Key West; San Diego via San Francisco and France via Minneapolis – from different ticket counters, changing her appearance subtlety each time, knowing that airport security was a lot more diligent regarding surveillance of ticket purchases and such since 9/11.

After that, Chloe went to three different beauty salons throughout the Houston Metropolis area: one to cut her blonde hair shorter, a second one to dye it a nice shade of auburn red and the third to put in a spiral perm. If someone was able to track her to any of the salons, Chloe didn't want to make it easy on them as to what she looked like now.

Using the blonde wig and blue contacts once again, Chloe went to the storage facility she had access to in Houston and traded the car she had picked up in LA for the one there. Transferring everything from one to the other, grabbing a few more supplies as well as shredding the plane tickets and all the credit cards she used to purchase them. She couldn't help but smirk and chuckle. Charging plane tickets to a few deceased people would certainly give whoever was going to be calling trying to collect, a definite runaround.

Now all she had to do was head back to Los Angeles and lose herself in the area's population.

*^*^*

_A little over a month later…_

Chloe had been busy since she'd had to run from Lex's attempted abduction of her. She had created another network that would lead anyone trying to track her cyber movements in a lot of circles. However, she wasn't passing any of the information she was finding to anyone; Watchtower had to go underground, perhaps to the point where she would never resurface. It practically killed Chloe not to be able to continue with her search for truth and to help met out justice but her life wouldn't be worth anything if it got her killed.

However, Chloe did think that she needed to get in touch with the League. They needed to know that she was alive at least and she hoped to learn whatever they knew about Lex's movements, knowing that her boys would have placed him under heavy surveillance after her disappearance. Making the decision, she decided it would be best to get in touch with them from a place that wasn't close to her real location.

Three days later, Chloe was in Seattle, clear on the other side of the city from the storage unit she actually maintained in the area. She had stopped there to download everything from her computer, hoping to go through the footage of that night as well as to sort out all the data that had come in via all her programs up to that point, before parking herself at a cyber cafe.

Utilizing the free wireless provided, Chloe linked herself into every surrounding hub in the area and went about setting up a bunch of phantom trails that would give her a huge head start at masking her own signature of any trackers. Uplinking to the internet, she placed her 'call' to Oliver Queen's penthouse in Metropolis.  
.

If Chloe had had to pick a day and time to get hold of the League, today would have been it. The entire League, including Bruce, were actually in the midst of a meeting. Despite their on-going search and concern for Watchtower, they still had missions to do and they were discussing the latest, scheduled to take place that night.

Victor was in the process of walking all of them through the schematics of the building's security system when an incoming transmission beeped for attention. Before any of them could do more than look from the giant plasma screen to the computer monitor, Victor was already decoding the encryption.

A huge smile lit his face and he put the communication onto the plasma.

The woman they saw didn't appear to be anyone they knew; blonde hair styled nicely, blue eyes behind gold rimmed frames, wearing a red beret, black scarf and a green jacket. However, her smile and greeting gave them all they needed to identify her.

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late for the meeting but I've been incredibly busy and the traffic is atrocious. Tell the bowling league that Jessica sends her love to everyone. Security has been an issue but I've been able to keep it from being too much of a problem. No sign of the pool guy yet.

"Anything I should know about on your end?"

Chloe had purposely disabled any video that might be coming back to her, leaving it up to Victor to enable it at his discretion; she hadn't known who would be there or how they'd be dressed, considering it was night in Metropolis, and the last thing Chloe wanted to do was expose any of the guys.

At Oliver and Bruce's nods, Victor enabled the video on their end and Chloe was able to see that all of her boys at least looked healthy. She drank in the sight of Oliver. The blonde billionaire looked much thinner than she remembered him being, as well as appearing as if he weren't getting very much sleep. Everyone else seemed well enough.

Bruce was the first to find his voice, "We'll pass your message on, Jessica, and we're glad you could make the meeting."

"Yeah, we were wondering if you'd be able to make it – great timing." AC smiled at Watchtower, his expression clearly showing her his relief that she was alright.

Someone passed behind Chloe, she used the laptop screen's reflection to double check her surroundings. The café had been pretty full and she'd been forced to take a table that allowed traffic all around her.

"Hey, I can get you better coffee, Jessica, you just have to let me know when you need it." Bart made a reference to the person who'd passed behind Watchtower, carrying a 'Seattle's Best Coffee' take-out cup.

Chloe snorted, "I'm sure you can but I won't be here long."

Message received: Watchtower's HQ wasn't in the area.

"The pool guy's watch was broken; I heard he got it fixed though and is adamant about keeping it so." Victor explained.

Chloe didn't even blink but nodded. "Yeah, my watch stopped while I was in the sub basement, haven't replaced it yet."

Oliver finally spoke up, quickly gaining Chloe's full attention. "We were planning on having a boys night out tonight, wish you could join us."

She swallowed, a bittersweet smile on her face, her eyes bright. "Wish I could too. Just as well that I can't I suppose. You might want to change the night, weather doesn't look good." Chloe sent the databurst, having done everything she could to encrypt the information.

If they'd understood the conversation, they knew that Watchtower was going underground with no idea of when or if she'd be coming back up; that the information she had just sent would be the last and they should look through it to make sure their target tonight didn't have any surprises for them.

Chloe looked at the time on the laptop. She had to wrap this communication up.

"Security is still a problem so I've gotta jet. If I have problems, I'll contact you." Surreptitiously, she showed the earwig that she had in her right ear, hidden well by her wig and beret.

"Sorry, about the pool guy, Jessica." Clark had been trying to come up with a way of apologizing to Chloe regarding his behavior, knowing full well that if it hadn't been for his actions, Lex probably wouldn't have paid her much mind.

Chloe shrugged slightly and nodded a little. "It happens."

Vic, Bart, AC, Clark and Bruce moved away from the plasma screen, giving Oliver the illusion of privacy. Not even glancing their way, his gaze stayed focused on Chloe.

Before she could come up with anything to say, Oliver was already voicing something, his eyes watching her as intensely now as when they'd parted that first and last afternoon. "We have a lot of unfinished business, Jessica. Whenever you get the time and energy, just let me know. I'm not going anywhere."

Chloe blinked her eyes a couple of times, fighting to keep the tears hovering at the back of her eyes from falling. Taking a large breath, she nodded. "As soon as security is taken care of and I can get out of the basement without something happening… we will; I promise." Her voice broke on the last part of the sentence.

They stared at each other for a moment longer and then Chloe cut the connection.  
.

Victor moved quickly but quietly to start going through the information that Watchtower had sent them. Focusing on it didn't leave much concentration to wander elsewhere and he wanted to give Oliver a few moments to compose himself. While Vic got himself busy at the computer, Oliver made his way over to the floor to ceiling windows that led onto the patio that overlooked Metropolis.

While Bart raided the kitchen, AC and Bruce did what they could to support Victor's work with Chloe's last databurst and Clark moved over to Oliver. Putting a hand up to one of Oliver's shoulders, the Kryptonian gave it a reassuring squeeze.

*^*^*

_Seventeen days after Chloe's communication with the Justice League…_

With the money that Chloe had siphoned throughout the years from the Luthors as well as her freelance work, both as a reporter and a published author, and Oliver's contributions while she was working for the League, there was no need for Chloe to jeopardize her safety with finding a job. However, without her duties as Watchtower, not being able to be an investigative reporter or even publishing as a writer, Chloe found it hard to keep from going crazy.

Chloe had never been one to sit on her butt or her hands and she knew herself well enough that, if she didn't find something to occupy herself, Chloe knew that she'd do something that would eventually get herself in trouble. But she hadn't done anything in the month and a half since escaping Lex's goons that could cause the catastrophe that happened.

It was just pure bad luck.

*^*^*

Chloe stepped out of the taxi, having already paid the driver, and made her way a few feet away from the curb to look at her surroundings. She'd decided to play tourist and was going to use the day to see what she could find that might keep her from getting bored.

As her taxi moved back into traffic, snarling it even further, someone made to grab her purse and laptop bag straps. Chloe, subconsciously taking in her surroundings, moved without thought, rounding on the would-be mugger, coming face to face with a knife.

"Give me the bags." Obviously the guy was used to dealing with women who just obeyed. It was too bad that today he'd chosen a woman who had the habit of taking down the bad guys.

Chloe threw her purse at the guy; his arm going up instinctively, she used the moment to kick the knife out of his hand and then downed him with a boot to the groin. Catching movement out of the corner of her eye, she looked to see the SUV she had vaguely noticed earlier, pulling into the spot that had been vacated by the taxi. Something was telling her, before the doors of the vehicle had done no more than open, that she needed to get away, and fast.

Simultaneously adjusting her bags on her shoulders, Chloe made to move away from the downed would-be mugger that was already drawing a crowd, hearing sirens approaching the area. Sensing movement, she quickly cast a glance around and found five dark suited guys with communicators in their ears and, considering the way their suits fit, all of them were armed.

None of them were flashing, or had any type of prominent, identification in sight, one of them already on a cell phone, and Chloe decided the better course of action was to get away and ask questions later.  
.

Oliver was sitting at his desk in the penthouse, going over some business contracts for Queen Industries, when the alarm for a priority communication sounded. Throwing himself out of his chair, he ran to the computer station and opened the channel.

As soon as the audio started coming through, he knew it was Chloe's emergency comm unit and that the situation couldn't be good. Listening to her trying to get away from whoever was after her, Oliver immediately sent a message to the League members for an emergency call-in.

Bruce, Victor and AC called in within seconds of each other and he linked them into the transmission he was listening to.

"Watchtower, are you anywhere near the water?"

Chloe was running hard, having broken away from the crowd and the suits near the street. She hadn't heard them say anything incriminating, so she couldn't be certain who they were taking orders from, but they weren't shouting at her to stop either, only furthering her suspicion.

"Completely landlocked." Chloe replied as calmly as possible.

"They haven't said anything to identify themselves or anything. That alone tells me it's Lex more than likely."

They could hear the sounds of traffic and people around her. Screeching tires, horns and braking noises heralded the fact that something had happened close to Chloe. Then there were the unmistakable sounds of a crash followed by someone, most likely Chloe, scrambling over vehicles perhaps.

Chloe was in great shape but even the best runners can't carry on a conversation after a certain point. "I take it… Impulse… Boy Scout… aren't checking in."

Oliver was doing everything he could to get hold of Bart and Clark but neither was responding and he didn't want to think that two more of his team members were in trouble. However, before he could comment, there were more sounds coming over the comm and Chloe was cursing.

Ignoring the sounds as nothing 'serious,' Oliver continued to try getting hold of Impulse or Boy Scout. "Victor, what's Lex's status?"

"All I can tell you is that he hasn't left his office. Security found the bug we planted earlier so there's no way of eavesdropping."

Oliver slammed his fist down on to the desk, "Damn it."

"We all know… how hard it is… to keep track of … everything he's into, Ollie." Chloe panted out, "That's why… he's never… paid for anything."

"Where are you, Watchtower? If you can evade them long enough, I can get my plane out there." Bruce queried.

"LA, Bruce. Seriously doubt… I can evade them… for that long… unless I can find a way… to get off… the street. And sooner or later… this is going to draw… the attention of – "

Before Chloe could finish, sirens were heralding the police. She saw two officers getting out of the vehicle and start towards her. Before she could do more than look at them, shots were fired and both of them were on the ground. Throwing on a burst of speed, she cut right, down into an alley that opened to another street.

"Watchtower!" Oliver's voice came over her earwig.

"Two officers down… chances are… they'll either… call it in and say I … did it… or – "

Coming up on the end of the alley, she was cut off from her escape route by the SUV that the suits had exited from. Two guys got out of it and she stumbled to a stop, breathing hard from the exertion. Turning her head to look behind her, she saw two others coming up behind her.

"Shit." And then she heard something like a silenced gun retort and felt pain slam into her torso.

Oliver's voice once again came over her communication link, once… then again…

Chloe was falling into darkness with Oliver's voice calling her name and she struggled to answer. "Archer… promise…," She groaned as more pain blossomed in her upper back. "Ollie…." And then Chloe knew nothing more.  
.

Back at the penthouse, Oliver fought to keep himself in control as Chloe's voice died out, knowing that something had happened and she was unable to answer him. Listening to the audio still coming through the link, he and the other three heard Chloe's pursuers check her over, noting that she was out cold due to the tranquilizer they had used. There was the sound of a cell phone being used and then confirmation of what they all suspected.

"We've got her, Mr. Luthor."

A moment later, the earwig must have been discovered because there was a bunch of feedback and then the signal went dead.

*^*^*

Chloe had had surgery once when she was younger and the feeling of waking up in the recovery room was akin to what she was feeling now. Her body felt floaty, not quite tethered to herself, her brain completely fuzzy yet taking in snapshots of what was going on around her. Her mouth felt like it was full of cotton and it felt weird to breathe.

As she became more aware of her surroundings, Chloe realized that she was bound tightly and rested on a cold concrete floor. Her hands were tied behind her at the wrists, her arms and legs strapped together at chest level and across her thighs and calves, her ankles and mouth secured with rope and a gag. The gag allowed her to breathe but unlike duct tape, it gave her the chance of vomiting, a side effect of the tranquilizer, without asphyxiating to death.

Her head ached, another side effect, and she groaned trying to ignore that and the nausea that was making itself known. When nothing stirred around her, Chloe came to the conclusion that she was alone where ever she was. Not having a great deal of flexibility or control over her motor skills at the moment, she was unable to look around to see her surroundings or if she was under some type of passive security.

Relaxing from the exertion, she quickly fell into a doze, her body still fighting off the effects of the tranquilizers she'd been hit with.

*^*^*

Clark and Bart were both overcome with guilt and grief at their inability to answer Oliver's calls; neither knowing of the League's efforts to get hold of them until they'd called in to give their reports. Bart had been involved in a rescue operation of a collapsed apartment building. At one point, he had, himself, nearly been crushed during the endeavor, only getting out by the skin of his teeth, but his cell phone hadn't been so lucky.

The Kryptonian had been watching the national coverage of a forest fire in the Pacific Northwest and had to act when three firefighters were reported to be trapped when the section they were working on had jumped its containment. With the roaring of the fire, concentrating on the firefighters' efforts and everything else, he simply hadn't heard the cell phone trying to get his attention.

By the time either of them had called in, it was far too late to help Chloe from being kidnapped. Their only option now was watching Lex, hoping he would lead them to where ever he was holding the petite blond, and continuing to destroy his 33.1 labs.

With that in mind, the League stepped up their surveillance of the bald billionaire; Oliver and Bruce both utilizing their networks of contacts to bring in as many other people they could trust, to help them.

*^*^*

She awoke to bright lights, the sensation of being in a sterile environment like a hospital or laboratory of some type, and the knowledge that she was restrained to a flat, cold surface. Blinking her eyes to clear them of the film that covered her vision, Chloe moved her head around, taking in her surroundings. Definitely a lab, and from the looks of it, it looked like what the boys described a 33.1 was like.

Given where she had just come from, it was a definite improvement in some areas, but Chloe knew that, if she had the choice, she'd rather be back where ever she had been for how ever long she'd been there. While she had been tied up like a prized bull at a rodeo and left completely alone except for when they gave her food, drink and allowed her to use the 'honey bucket' – a sarcastically glorious term for the portable toilet that smelled badly – Chloe had at least been away from Lex and his sick scientific experimentation.

But before she could do more than make the realization that she'd prefer more solitary confinement, a door opened and someone approached her from an angle that was out of her range of sight. However, the voice made her close her eyes for a moment to gather herself.

"Well, Miss Sullivan, alive and well. I admit, even I didn't think you were alive until I saw the photos of you."

He moved around the table until he was in her direct line of sight.

"Surprise." Was all Chloe said, trying to lock her emotions deep within her; it wouldn't do any good to panic, she had to figure a way to get out of here. Given the previous time of solitary confinement, Chloe knew she wasn't at her best. She was literally starving for information; to know what was going on around her, what had gone on. At the same time, she tried not to think about what Lex and his minions had in store for her.

"Still fast with the quips, I see." Lex smirked. "You've led my men on a merry chase, indeed. Sorry it's taken me so long to attend to you personally, I've had a lot of pressing details to take care of."

Before he could continue on with his, obviously, delighted speech, Chloe mentally rolled her eyes, "Oh, please, I was perfectly happy not to have you around, Lex, believe me."

He came closer, running the backs of his fingers over one of her cheeks, down her throat and along her collarbone, "You know, Chloe, you were a pretty girl and you've grown into an exceptionally beautiful young woman."

She shuddered at his touch, realizing that she was completely naked under the thin sheet that covered her, and tried to pull herself away from his act of familiarity; his words chilling her with terrible foreboding.

"You've always been too smart and curious for your own good. And you were right to disappear. You did a great job at it for over six years and, while I was curious what Oliver Queen saw in you, if it hadn't been for Clark Kent's behavior around you, I probably wouldn't have given you more than a second thought."

Lex had continued to caress her as he spoke and it was all Chloe could do to keep the nausea and her shudders of disgust stifled.

"But, you're here now and you won't be getting away any time soon."

Failing to get a rise from the young reporter, Lex decided to get to the point. To Chloe's immense relief, he stopped caressing her as he spoke next.

"I know about your healing ability, Chloe. I also know that you are that mysterious information gathering vigilante known as 'Watchtower.' And I know too that you're involved with the Green Arrow and his band of terrorists. The only thing I don't know is who the Green Arrow is."

Chloe sighed. "One, from what I've read, Green Arrow is hardly a terrorist; a bit eccentric perhaps, what with running around in green leather and using a bow and arrows to do whatever it is he does. Still, hardly someone I'd think of as a terrorist except to those who have a right to be… terrified." She glanced significantly at Lex before continuing, "And two, I really think all those knocks to the head over the years have made you delusional, Lex."

Lex snorted, huffing out a breath and then turned away from her for a moment, making a gesture to someone out of Chloe's line of sight.

As people began to surround her, Lex turned back to her, smiling.

"As I was saying, 'Watchtower,' I don't know who he is, but you do. And you're going to tell me."

*^*^*

Victor had successfully been able to tap into security feeds for the majority of the building, helping the League with surveillance. However, the late Lionel Luthor's and his son's offices, along with some other areas of the building, which were mostly labs, and the loading dock, had eluded his expertise.

Delivery trucks were constantly coming and going from LuthorCorp's downtown Metropolis building. Some of them parked outside the main entrance, mostly those dropping off packages, like the Pony Express, bicycle couriers or messengers, but the majority of them used the loading dock just off the underground parking garage.

It was considered a priority to get someone inside to monitor the activity at the dock, perhaps to even smuggle in and place some more bugs for them to take advantage of. While Clark was able to utilize his x-ray vision during his watch and Impulse could run in every few minutes to look around, they couldn't be there 24/7.

Since the Justice League's last bug had been found, Lex had begun doing a security sweep of his office twice daily at random intervals. Either Lex had gotten significantly smarter about his security or he'd finally been able to hire someone who took their job completely seriously.

In any case, Cyborg's computerized routes of keeping surveillance on Lex Luthor within LuthorCorp were becoming harder to maintain and keep hidden.

It was this aspect that made them lose track of Lex.

For an entire week.

*^*^*

The solitary confinement Lex had ordered her to be placed in for the ten days it had taken him to arrange those 'pressing details,' had weakened Chloe emotionally and mentally. Despite everything, she was still able to resist the efforts of Luthor's goons and scientists, working to drag out the information Lex wanted about the Green Arrow, for three days.

During the interrogations, they were able to gather a significant amount of data about her healing ability, however. They realized that Chloe's body healed itself instinctively if she were unconscious or otherwise unaware of the injury, such as contusions or lacerations, fractures and pulled tendons or muscles. On the other hand, the scientists found that it was always more efficient if Chloe was conscious or otherwise aware of the injury because her complete focus of energy on the wound took less time and was less of a risk of her actually dying. Chloe would literally bleed to death from a bullet wound, unless otherwise attended to, if she was senseless because of the lack of conscious focus brought to bear on the injury.

Chloe quickly learned that if she didn't heal herself of certain injuries, the scientists would do it for her, without benefit of any sort of pain relieving medication. And while she hated to do what they wanted her to do, Chloe much preferred her healing ability over 'modern day medicine' as Lex's people practiced it; healing meant remaining alive and being alive meant hope. Hope of escape. Hope of rescue.

As Luthor continued to try torturing all the information Chloe had, out of her, he was also having his scientists move forward with one of his special military projects, using her as the prime subject.

After the third day of unsuccessfully trying to artificially impregnate her with DNA-modified sperm and then with unmodified sperm, it was concluded that Chloe's healing ability would fight off what it believed to be invasive or unnatural to the body. On the fourth day, they decided to give Chloe a course of hormone treatments with the hope that it would give them a better chance at impregnating her via sexual intercourse.

*^*^*

While Chloe believed that she was an incredibly strong individual, she knew that everyone had their breaking point. One of her greatest fears while enduring the torture and tests that Lex and his people were doing, was that she would give up everything she knew about the Justice League and its members. So when they stopped the obvious torture and interrogations, Chloe couldn't help but have mixed feelings.

What was next? Would she be able to endure it? Could she keep her wits about her? Perhaps even enough to finally figure out a way to get out of Lex's own personal version of a chamber of horrors?  
.

Chloe had grown to the point where she cringed every time the door to her own private lab cell was opened. Tension mounting, she waited for whatever Lex and his scientists had in mind for her this time. After several minutes of nothing but silence after the door had been opened and closed, Chloe maneuvered her head around, trying to see what was happening.

Chuckling, Lex came into view, wearing a white robe. "Your curiosity was always your undoing, Miss Sullivan." Chloe took in his appearance, a chill of foreboding running through her.

"Ah yes," Lex smirked, "You've noticed my attire." He made his way to where she lay restrained on the table. "It seems that your body, your healing ability, won't allow us to do what we'd planned, cleanly and easily so…" Lex ripped the sheet from her body, throwing it to the side and then took off his robe, revealing his pale, naked flesh.

Chloe's eyes widened and she began to struggle, knowing it was useless.

"You know, I can make this very pleasurable for you, Chloe. All you have to do is cooperate." He lowered the table, his eyes traversing her body, noting all the signs of abuse that hadn't quite healed from his efforts at getting her to talk about the Green Arrow. When his eyes reached her face, he easily climbed on top of her tense and squirming body. Taking her head in both his hands, he forced her to look at him. "This is going to happen whether you like it or not, Chloe."

She spit at him.

Lex's expression grew feral, darkly amused. "You know, while I've always admired your… spunk, I'm growing very tired of it." When she attempted to spit on him again, he slapped her, hard. "I've always had a kink for sadomasochism. Until now, it's been relatively unexplored."

He could feel Chloe's breath stutter and speed up, her body started to tremble and her eyes opened wide with disbelief – all speaking of her fear and his smile grew wider. Lex looked at the split lip he'd given her, fresh blood drooling down her chin. "With your healing ability, I could explore the entire aspect to my heart's content."

Chloe blinked and a tear ran from her left eye down her temple into her hair.

Lex laughed, his smile growing with anticipation. "Ah, I do believe I've finally found a chink in your armor, Miss Sullivan."

Laughing again at her struggles, he continued, "Whether you enjoy this or not, Chloe, I _know_ I will." With that, he bowed his head and bit the apex of the breast closest to him and Chloe screamed with the unexpected pain.

It would be the first of many.

But when he entered her dry cavern with his unslicked length, ripping at her tender skin, using her own blood for lubrication, she wasn't even able to do that; Chloe's already overstressed throat from the previous days of torture had finally given out.  
.

While Lex understood that his time was growing short, he hoped that Chloe didn't become pregnant with their first joining. The young reporter had a lot to answer for and, like he told her, he was looking forward to exploring a side of his sexuality in a way that wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass. Chloe was theirs to do with as they saw fit; there would be no retaliation for what he did to her, no police, no media circus to circumvent, nothing.

However, Chloe did become pregnant with that first coupling and Lex set aside his desires for another time.

Before heading back to Metropolis, Lex went to the laboratory once more. As soon as Chloe saw him, she started trembling and Lex smiled with triumph.

Chuckling, he came to stand beside her, caressing her skin, his hand roaming under the sheet to fondle a breast, before using his other to rip the sheet from her body once more. Laughing as she shuddered and went pale, turning her head away from him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. Slowly, one hand made its way down to the juncture between her legs and Chloe attempted to squeeze them together to keep him from penetrating her. Lex brought his other hand to her face, grasping her chin hard enough to leave bruises. Looking around her upper body, he could still see all the bruises, bites and scratches that he had inflicted on her during their joining.

"Congratulations, Chloe. You're going to be a mother."

She tried to shake her head but there was no give in Lex's grip and she swallowed convulsively.

He smiled at her predatorily. "You are going to be so proud of all of your little ones. They'll be an army, leading us to greatness."

Chloe stilled, her breathing speeding up, her green eyes wide.

Lex smirked. "That's right, Chloe. You're going to be a breeder. This first child will be left in your womb, very carefully monitored. Once it's born, we'll begin again. If we can transfer them to a uterine replicator, then you and I will be spending even more time together."

He could feel her trying to shake her head, tears running down her temples and into her hair, but not a sound passed her lips. "Just think of it, Chloe. I'll get to take you over and over and over and over." His finger penetrated her with every 'over,' digging into her channel, opening the lacerations that had not fully healed yet. "In whatever way I desire." Lex continued, smiling evilly down at her now, his eyes dark with lust.

"And once we get things ironed out, I'll be interviewing specific males. We must vary the genes that are going to be in our army in order for it to be unstoppable, of course." He watched Chloe's body shudder and tremble with understanding, his hand still at the juncture of her legs, fondling her mound. "I wonder how many of them will indulge in my S&M interest? How many of them will you scream for, Chloe?"

With that, he turned from her, giving her feminine mound a couple of pats, like someone would a dog on their way out of the house to work, and left Chloe to fret over her fears and to cry her tears.

*^*^*

It had been three months since Chloe had been abducted and the Justice League had absolutely nothing on her whereabouts. After the week that Lex had managed to evade their surveillance, he seemed to be completely at ease with whatever it was that he had his minions continue doing without his supervision; a surprising move, given Lex's thirst for being involved in some way in his various projects and it made them all uneasy.

The League, including Clark and Batman whenever possible, were decimating Lex's 33.1 labs all over the world, but they didn't find any trace of or information regarding where Watchtower could be, in any of them. Oliver had teamed up with Senator Kent, the _Daily Planet_ and the _Star City Gazette_, putting a reward together for any information regarding the disappearance of Calypso Scott, shown dressed as both Chloe Sullivan and Caly.

Revealing that Chloe was alive to both Martha Kent and Lois Lane was something that Oliver hadn't wanted to do, for a variety of reasons. The uppermost in Queen's mind was that, in case they couldn't locate Chloe or, if they did but they arrived too late… it would be devastating for all involved, having to lose the petite blond all over again. Another reason was that Oliver didn't think he could keep control of his own emotions if he had to spend too much time in the company of the two women with their combined worry over Chloe.

As the months progressed, however, he underestimated both woman and actually ended up taking comfort from their strength. With his position as leader of the Justice League, Oliver also found himself confiding in Mrs. Kent about his undefined relationship with the missing blond, something he realized that he desperately needed in order to maintain his focus on what needed to be done. Having been without a motherly type figure in his life since his parents were lost, Oliver was in awe of Martha Kent's compassion, inner strength and the wisdom she shared unselfishly with him.  
.

Four months into the search for Chloe, Oliver was on his way home from another charity event in Metropolis, when he disappeared.

*^*^*

"Good, you're awake."

"Lex. What the hell…?"

"I need your help with something."

"And you couldn't have just asked? What's going on, Lex?"

"Well, since it involves grievous injury to your person, I knew you wouldn't volunteer, so I had to take matters into my own hands." Lex motioned to someone behind him and then Oliver was picked up by two large men in black suits.

Oliver struggled to free himself from the restraints. Given Lex's comment regarding 'grievous injury,' he didn't want to find out what was in store for him. However, there wasn't any way of getting any leverage with his being tied up, the bonds too tight, as he was dragged through a variety of corridors before coming to a door that opened onto a laboratory.

Quickly, he took in the room. It looked to be mostly a lab but there was a wall of floor to ceiling windows that divided a smaller part of the room into what could only be described as a cell. There was a bed, a small table with two chairs and a completely open bathroom, with shower stall, toilet and sink; the occupant being given no privacy anywhere in the room.

Lex's men continued to drag him further into the lab, placing him upon a steel table, exchanging the fetters he was currently tied up with, with the ones on the table. On another table not too far away from him, was a body covered with a sheet. The person's head wasn't in Oliver's line of sight and he couldn't make out the configuration of the body under the sheet as it seemed to be misshapen.

"You see, this woman is the mother of my new army; but she doesn't want that responsibility and has gotten to be very stubborn about cooperating, even to the point of trying to terminate her own life."

With that, the sheet was ripped away and Oliver saw that the woman was pregnant, her naked stomach distended enough where he couldn't see over the top of it to the face beyond. But his heart stuttered, his mind screamed; he _knew_ who it was.

"We've learned everything we can about her healing ability. She refuses to cooperate and heal anyone we've brought to her, no matter how close to death they are. And since you know her, we're hoping that, when we stick a knife in your heart, she'll set aside her reservations and heal you." Lex had pulled the table with the woman on it, parallel with Oliver's.

Chloe had turned her head away from the table that held whomever Lex had brought to use against her, but as Lex said that the person knew her, she couldn't help but look to the other person. Her eyes opened wide, her expression becoming one of acute anguish and dismay.

Oliver's eyes opened wide as well, his mouth falling open slightly and before he could engage his mind, one of the men in black thrust a knife into his chest and he uttered a short groaned yelp of pain, flecks of blood flew into the air at the force of his lungs expelling his breath.

He heard Chloe's horror filled denial and then she was demanding for her restraints to be released. Oliver felt the tension of the people in the room mounting, he vaguely saw the men in black pulling guns from their holsters and then Chloe was standing before him, naked but for the wires and tubes that were attached all over her.

"Oh, God." She looked down at his wound and then up into his eyes, ignoring Oliver's silently whispered 'no,' the shaking of his head.

Eyes bright with unshed tears, Chloe gazed into Oliver's face, lifting one hand to grasp his nearest before placing her other hand over the wound in his chest. Oliver continued to mouth the word 'no' but Chloe closed her eyes.

She heard Lex's scientists gasp as her hand began to glow, bathing her, Oliver and the immediate area around them in bright golden light. Chloe felt the warmth of her essence going into the chest wound, once again stitching tendon, muscle, veins, tissues and skin together. As with AC, as Oliver began to heal and strengthen, Chloe began to lose her own strength and grow cold, taking his pain and making it her own for a brief moment.

When the light faded, Oliver saw Chloe begin crumpling to the floor. Restrained as he was, he couldn't catch her and no one else was in range; he couldn't even look over the side of the table he was on to see if she'd hurt herself with her collapse.

Then Lex was ordering his men in black to get Chloe back onto the table and refasten the restraints, while the scientists were going on and on about how amazing and interesting and impossible the whole thing was; taking note that she appeared to be dead, her lungs still, her heart beat silent, even the fetus inside her appeared to be dead. Before Lex could do anything other than change his expression into anger, however, another scientist was pointing out a small area of Chloe's brain, represented on a monitor, that appeared to be working in overdrive.

Oliver noted all this in the back of his mind, his focus completely on the woman that had stolen his heart, had captured his soul, lying beside him, so close yet so far away. She was pregnant with someone's baby; she'd apparently tried to kill herself; she'd been missing for over four months; Chloe looked thin and pale, as if she wasn't eating and, if she'd been in this laboratory during her entire disappearance, it would explain her looking so unnaturally white.

Continuing to drink in the sight of her, Oliver saw the evidence of abuse that hadn't quite healed yet. Her hair was much shorter and she'd permed and colored it but there was about three inches of straight, blond hair showing at the scalp. She also seemed thinner, her muscle tone not as well defined due to her captivity.

He came back to himself while one of Lex's scientists was speaking about the baby.

"Given that she's 'dead' but has all the brain activity going on, I believe the baby will be fine. However, I suggest that we check to see if the baby is having the same brain activity. If not… we may wish to leave the fetus alone until the woman's status changes and go from there, or we could harvest the fetus and try to continue him via ectogenesis or we could harvest him for whatever DNA we can and begin again."

"How long until we can impregnate her again?"

"That depends on when/if she reawakens and what her condition is when/if she does."

"Very well. Check the baby for the brain activity. If he's not responding as she is, harvest him for ectogenesis; if that doesn't work, the DNA.

"As soon as she's back, give her the regime of hormone therapy and then call me when she's ready to be mounted again. I have several willing male candidates but I think we'll use myself again for the next pregnancy."

Oliver was completely dumbfounded by Lex's conversation with the scientists. So much so, that when Lex referred to himself as having been the one to impregnate Chloe, he just couldn't react to it.

Thinking for a moment, Lex continued, "If the ectogenesis works, I want to start breeding her as quickly as possible. We'll have her mounted as often as possible to get as many fertilized eggs as we can; then I want her placed in a coma, she'll be less trouble that way, until we need her for the next round of breeding."

Oliver's shock left him in an instant at this last, changing from being dumbfounded and filled with horror at what had obviously been done to his Watchtower, to complete and utter rage. Lex must have heard his stuttered indrawn breath, having been shocked breathless with his anger, because he came around the table and smirked down at Oliver.

"Well, seems as if Miss Sullivan became just as smitten with you as you did with her, Oliver. We'll keep you around to make Chloe more agreeable to cooperating with us. Maybe we'll even let you two set up house somewhere in the facility; of course, you'd never be able to have sex with her because of what she's going to be doing for us, but they say love isn't about sex anyhow."

Oliver was seething, his face red, his neck and the muscles in his arms and legs bulging with trying to get out of the restraints. He wanted nothing more than to tear Lex apart, limb from limb, feel the blood gushing from the man's body, beating him into a bloody pulp.

"My, my, Oliver. I admit, Chloe was a fantastic _ride_," Lex smirked knowingly, satisfyingly, tauntingly, "But she's nothing to risk having a heart attack over." Lex motioned for something and one of the scientists came around the table holding a syringe.

"I think Mr. Queen, needs something to calm him down."

The needle was inserted into his arm and the plunger pushed. Lex's face started wavering before his eyes, laughter ringing strangely in his ears.

"Goodnight, Oliver."

*^*^*

Back at the Clock Tower, four of the guys were just now coming together after coming up empty in their search for Oliver Queen. Linking in with Batman in Gotham, they set about discussing the situation.

"Do we know it was Oliver who was kidnapped?"

The other three look at Cyborg with varying expressions of confusion and disbelief. "Um, Victor…?" Clark started.

"I mean, do we know it was Oliver Queen, billionaire, CEO of Queen Industries, or was it Oliver Queen, AKA Green Arrow who was kidnapped?" As the expressions changed to understanding, he continued. "If we assume that it was Oliver as CEO, we need to make sure that Green Arrow doesn't disappear as well or, by the time we get him back…" Victor let the end of his sentence trail off, allowing the guys to come to their own conclusions.

Clark, nodding, was the first to reply, "Apologies to Batman, but with Bruce doing his nightly patrols in Gotham that would just leave AC and me to cover for Green Arrow." He looked over to Aquaman, catching the nod of agreement. "But then that really strains us for surveillance of Lex," he was interrupted by a snort from Bart.

"Like we're doing _so_ good in that department to begin with." The young speedster noted. The others nodded in disappointed agreement.

Victor let out a sigh, "As much as I hate to say it, I wish I had Watchtower's ability with information gathering. Even if I am half a computer, I still can't seem to get any passive surveillance of Lex's inner sanctum or the loading dock area.

"Well, any that lasts more than twelve or so hours that is." He quantified.

Aquaman tipped his head slightly, his eyes seeming to lose focus, his mouth pursed.

"AC? What's up, man?" Bart looked to the man who was best when it came to all things water oriented.

"I know that you, Oliver and Bruce all started a project to create some type of portable, long range x-ray device, for both surveillance purposes and to put into eyewear and that it's going to take months, maybe even years, because the technology isn't available yet…" The others waited for him to continue with his thoughts.

AC definitely wasn't a technology type guy and didn't pretend to be, but he was trying to remember something that he'd come across in a mission or maybe a movie that he'd seen or heard about.

Shrugging, AC just threw out, "Isn't there some type of 'bug' that you can turn off and on to watch Lex and put in the loading dock area?"

While Victor looked at AC, Bart wrinkled his forehead, "What good would that do?"

"The reason the 'bugs' are being found is because they are actively monitoring whatever we have them pointed at. It's that aspect of them that is setting off the 'snoopers,' the hand-held security wands that Luthor's people use when looking for breaks in security." Bruce piped in.

Victor continued from where Batman stopped. "The problem with using passive bugs would be that they wouldn't be able to be 'on' unless someone was here, at the computer station, and watching them. So, in order for them to be of any use to us, we'd have to have someone sitting here, 24/7, and then turning them off during a security sweep." Victor, Bruce and Oliver had considering them, of course, but had rejected them simply for the reason that they would be of almost no use to them as a surveillance measure because of the very reason that made them passive.

"So… by not using them, it's allowing Lex to elude us?" Clark asked disgustedly.

Victor understood the man's response as he was upset with the entire situation as well.

Batman once again picked up the thread of conversation. "That's the trick or problem with surveillance. If the person you're watching can afford the same toys as you, it becomes harder and harder to maintain any sort of scrutiny."

Bart sighed into the conversation and stated the obvious, "Lex has managed to slip by us once, twice now because he's been gone since just before Oliver disappeared. And Oliver is gone now. I'm voting for passive bugs; I don't care if I have to sit comm 24/7 for a week straight. We've obviously screwed up, not once, not twice, but three times."

When the others looked at him, his shoulders slumped a little, "If we'd put some sort of surveillance on Lex as well as Watchtower a long time ago, I don't think we'd be in this situation."

The others didn't bother making any type of comment.

*^*^*


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Seven

When Oliver awoke, he found himself in a small room. Noting the open and sterile floorplan of it, he assumed that it was the room off the lab that had the wall of windows. However, on this side, the windows turned out to look like one giant mirror – one way glass. Everyone could see in but no one within the room could see out.

Since he was alone, it appeared that he and Chloe were to have separate cells or Lex's scientists were still treating her as a guinea pig. Knowing Lex, it wouldn't surprise him if they did indeed keep her in the lab all the time.

Shaking his head slightly, he sat up on the bed, fighting the nausea and dizziness that assailed him from the sedative they'd given him as well as the stench of the blood that was all over his shirt and chest. Once certain that he wasn't going to vomit or fall over, he stripped the garment off and threw it into the bathroom area before standing up and taking a more detailed look of the room he was in. A short few minutes later, he was standing at the mirror, hands shading his eyes, trying to see through into the other room.

After he'd used the open bathroom to wash the remaining blood from his chest, Oliver paced and wandered the room for an unknown amount of time, using the toilet a couple of times before a large square opened in the mirrored wall, close to the left corner of the room, near the floor. A tray with food and a bottle of water was pushed through and then the square disappeared, almost seamlessly back into the glass.

Taking the tray over to the table, he peered at the contents before taking a cautious smell of everything. His growing hunger the only thing telling him how long he'd been there, having no idea how much longer he would be a prisoner, Oliver decided to sit down and eat what had been provided. He knew he needed to keep up his strength if he were to affect any type of escape for Chloe and himself and it would be best to find out now rather than later if anything had been drugged. Although, just because it wasn't drugged now, didn't mean it wouldn't be later, of course.

Giving a sigh, Oliver consumed the contents of the tray.

Again, Oliver had no idea how long he paced the cell. His mind was constantly going over everything that had happened since his abduction; thoughts of Chloe and what he'd heard and seen and worrying over what was being done to her now as he languished in the room.

Feeling tired, Oliver lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Soon, his eye lids fell closed and he drifted off into an uneasy sleep.  
.

He was awakened some time later by another square opening, this time high in the right hand wall. As he watched, he saw a bulky man with a rifle target him at the same time a door opened in the same area the food tray had been pushed through, revealing a gurney with a naked Chloe being wheeled into the room. Understanding that he'd be shot if he made a move towards the door, Oliver held himself still until the gurney came to a stop and the door was closed once again. The sniper pulled back and the opening he'd been using was then shut.

Chloe was conscious but looked utterly exhausted. Oliver quickly moved to the gurney and freed her from the restraints; pulling her into his arms, he felt the trembling in her body as she tried to wrap her own around his neck. Unable to complete the action, she ended up laying one arm over his near shoulder and the other on his far one near his neck. Oliver carried her to the bed, settling them down, helping to pull her as close to him as possible as Chloe pushed herself into him.

Oliver had placed himself on the side of the bed nearest the door, pulling Chloe into his right side, allowing her to snuggle in and make herself as comfortable as possible before arranging his own limbs to hold her, to entangle with hers. Half of her body was trapped between them as well as the bed; her breasts appeared to be tender as well as her now non-distended abdomen. One of his arms was under her neck and then wrapped around her back, allowing him to caress her softly, comfortingly, while his other hand entwined with hers along his chest and stomach.

Oliver had been whispering to her the entire time, telling her how much he missed her and that everything was going to be fine and caressing her softly while making 'shushing' noises to calm her when she tensed up or began trembling even more when they finally settled on the bed. When Chloe started crying, he let her, continuing to caress her, placing soft kisses in her hair and on her forehead, whispering to her, until she cried herself out, falling asleep.

Oliver settled in to watch over her.

*^*^*

Lex had still been in the building when one of his scientists had informed him that Chloe had awakened. After making his way back to the lab and getting a detailed analysis of the fetus, which they had had to harvest for DNA, and Chloe's condition, Lex ordered the hormone therapy and then told them to place her in her room for the remainder of the evening.

He smiled to himself with dark humor; he would get to mount the troublesome reporter once more before heading back to Metropolis. And he couldn't help but think, after watching Queen's reaction, that the entire situation could provide him with some sort of revenge for everything the upperclassman had put him through at Excelsior.

Obviously Miss Sullivan had grown somewhat attached to the blonde billionaire and, based on Oliver's reaction after she'd 'died,' he had some sort of attachment to the petite blonde as well. What better way to get some of his own back against both while creating his super race than to use each of them against each other?

Lex laughed, _'Oh yes, this is going to be very pleasurable indeed.'_

*^*^*

Chloe slept long enough that Oliver's own fatigue pulled him into slumber some time later. After another unknown period of time, the square at the base of the door opened and two trays of food and drink were pushed through. Oliver had awakened the moment the mechanism that controlled the square activated and had watched the trays slide in. Chloe was still sleeping and he hesitated to disturb her, for a variety of reasons.

Oliver reveled in Chloe's warm body against his. It was obvious that she'd lost weight and muscle tone, her low grade trembling that she hadn't lost even during sleep, screamed to him of the suffering and horror his Watchtower had been put through. The dark circles under Chloe's eyes appeared to have lightened but the stress of her ordeal was more than apparent in the lines of her face and the tension of her body. Lines and tension that he hadn't ever noticed before; Oliver thought she'd aged at least five years in the few months she'd been missing.

They had changed position during sleep and while Chloe was still holding onto him, he could now look down her body. The obvious abuse that he'd noted in the lab, appeared to be completely healed now; although her stomach was now a bunch of folded skin, no longer distended for the pregnancy and Oliver could only guess that Lex's scientists had 'harvested' the unborn child.

Looking back to her face, he couldn't resist raising a hand and caressing one of her cheeks, letting the gesture continue into her hair. The long golden blonde hair he'd loved was cut short and colored now and he could tell that she hadn't washed it for a few days, but just the ability to do that brought a burning sensation to the back of his eyes.

_Chloe._

Before he had time to move his hand, Watchtower had woken, her eyes showing him that she hadn't expected it to be Oliver near her. The additional tension left her body as she recognized him. Before either of them could open their mouths, Chloe's stomach rumbled and Oliver moved from the bed towards the two trays that were on the floor.

Bringing both of them to the table, he barely looked at Chloe as she took a moment in the open bathroom. While Oliver felt uncomfortable being in the open room with her running around naked, he couldn't help but sympathize with her if this is what her existence for the last four months had been like.

As she sat down at the table, he realized that neither of them had spoken to each other outside of the comforting words he'd whispered to her before she'd cried herself to sleep. As Chloe started to pick at the food on her tray after taking a long drink from her water bottle, she glanced over to him. Before he could open his mouth, she looked down to her plate.

"I'm… I, uh…" Chloe seemed completely lost in what she wanted to say.

Surprisingly, Oliver found himself in the same situation. Given their surroundings and the secrets each of them carried, he was hesitant to talk freely with her, knowing that Lex must have some type of audio surveillance in the room. Also, what do you tell the woman who you'd fallen for, who'd been missing or hiding for the last five months, obviously tortured, being left in a sensory deprivation situation, suffering from acute Post Traumatic Stress and was being held by the only person in her life who she'd been fearing for her life from?

He stood from his chair and moved to her side. Getting down on his knees, he bent forward and enveloped her in a hug. Chloe dropped her fork onto her plate and threw herself into the embrace, holding onto Oliver as if her very life depended on his actually being there. Her tears wetting his hair, dribbling down his neck as he held her, once again whispering comfort into her hair, caressing her back with one hand.

The couple was unaware of Lex's smirking scrutiny of them through the lab windows.

Thoughts from earlier came back to him, _'Oh yes, this is going to be _very_ pleasurable.'_

*^*^*

About an hour later, the 'sniper square,' as Oliver now thought of it, opened. This must have been something that had been a part of some routine for Chloe at one time because she wasn't surprised by the appearance of the rifle; however, she looked at him as if it took her a moment to figure out why he was there.

Only the obvious tensing that came with the instinctive fight or flight response that was ingrained in all creatures, especially those used to dealing with confrontations like Watchtower and Green Arrow, could be felt between Chloe and Oliver as security guards made their appearance. There was more of a reaction from Chloe when the scientists entered the room, as should probably be expected given what they had put her through.

It was only when Lex Luthor entered the cell that Chloe's reaction became that of someone who had experienced some type of blinding terror. She tightened her hold on Oliver, trembling hard, breathing and heart rate speeding up significantly. Oliver could literally feel the waves of tension and fear that she was radiating at the bald billionaire's presence.

And so could Lex, who smiled sadistically, eyes taking in the couple on the bed; one struggling to remain calm and give the other comfort while the second could do nothing but shudder. Lex imagined he could even hear the petite blonde whimper and he reveled in the power her held over such a strong individual.

Lex knew that if he wanted to get Chloe out of the room, there would be an altercation, despite the security guard with the rifle. He didn't want Oliver unconscious because he wanted him to be completely lucid for what was going to take place a few minutes from now. That also meant that Chloe needed to be conscious as well.

"I am going to make this incredibly simple." Lex took a few steps towards the bed, "Chloe will do everything we want her to do because if she doesn't, Oliver will come to harm, and Chloe will _not_ be allowed to heal him. Oliver will also suffer the consequences, again, with no healing from Chloe, if he tries to protect or escape with Chloe."

Lex smirked and thought of laughing but didn't. "And, if Chloe tries to commit suicide again, Oliver will be put into a different cell and severely beaten. And Chloe will watch it, but she won't be able to touch.

"The same thing will happen if Oliver tries to do the 'noble' thing and kill Chloe to 'save' her from this wonderful life we've brought her into." And Lex did laugh this time.

As Lex stated his … 'terms' for Chloe's expected behavior, it became harder and harder to do anything but offer whatever comfort he could to Watchtower. He struggled to bury his fury, his frustration and his incredible need to kill Lex and get Chloe and himself out of the facility. He watched Chloe as each term from Lex seemed to take more and more of her spirit away. While she continued to tremble, she also seemed to wilt against him; however, she refused to cry, her eyes remaining incredibly dry.

And then he realized that Chloe had retreated into her mind, an obvious and common defense mechanism for those having dealt with torture and other traumatic situations.

Lex must have recognized this as well because he motioned for his security to take her to the gurney and strap her in. When they approached them, Oliver couldn't help but tense and place himself in a defensive stance with Chloe behind him. Lex cleared his throat and raised his left eyebrow.

Oliver bowed his head momentarily, taking a large breath, and then moved away from the woman who completely possessed his soul. He watched them take the unresisting woman to the gurney and put the restraints on her, wheeling the table out into the lab, the two scientists following.

When all but Lex, one of his men in black and the sniper were left, the bald billionaire looked to Oliver.

"I know that you're used to the finest in entertainment that money can buy. But we can't accommodate that here, for obvious reasons. So, you'll have to make due with what there is." Lex made a gesture and a picture of the lab appeared in the center of the mirror, where all of them could see the scientists attaching wires and other paraphernalia to Chloe.

Moving closer, leaning down to whisper close to Oliver's ear, he continued, "To keep you company, you'll get to see almost everything that happens to her, especially when she's mounted, over and over again." Lex smirked, chuckling, backhanding Oliver into the wall when the man on the bed made to lunge at him.

As Lex was just about to leave the cell, he looked back over his shoulder and gave Oliver another taunting smile.

Despite Lex's sadistic reasons for making Oliver watch what he did to Chloe, Oliver couldn't help but think that at least he would know what was happening with Chloe and, when they got out of here, he would do everything possible to help her put all of this behind her, behind them.

*^*^*

Once the door to Chloe and Oliver's cell was sealed behind him, Lex strode over to the gurney that held the petite blonde. His scientists were finished with her for the moment so Lex gave her a quick leering glance before walking to them and getting an update.

With the restraints the way they were, Chloe didn't have much room to move, but she tried to avert her eyes from the bald man as he'd approached her, without much success. When he leered at her, she had just closed her eyes and wished everything was over.

She had been readied to be 'mounted' by the scientists; they'd given her the hormone therapy and had her legs spread, and bent up and out, her pelvis inclined to accept the mounter, and she couldn't help but feel humiliated at the position she was in, right in the middle of the lab, where anyone who wanted could just look at her.

To try and give her mind something else to focus on instead of the upcoming rape, Chloe pulled out her memories of Oliver and their time together. She couldn't help but think of seeing him, those hours ago in the lab, when they'd brought him in and before they plunged a knife in his chest.

God, he'd looked good. Lex must have grabbed him either before or after some sort of black tie affair. The tux only made the blonde billionaire so much more delicious looking. However, she had to admit that she preferred him in his Green Arrow gear… or, better yet, naked.

She recalled him pulling her from the gurney in the cell and bringing her over to the bed. Chloe had pushed herself to get as close to him as possible, feeling his warmth, the hard and strong body, the smell of him. She'd delved into all that comfort and had just let herself go, knowing that he would keep her safe for just a few precious minutes. She hadn't cared if he'd been half naked, all she'd wanted was safety and comfort from everything that had happened to her since Lex had tried to abduct her all that time ago. Even if Oliver had been kidnapped to use against her, she couldn't feel guilty about it, at least not right then. She needed him. She had needed someone so much stronger than herself to lean on, to just hang onto her while she'd fallen apart.

Now, hours later, she still couldn't feel guilty, but she felt fury and dismay. Fury that Lex could… that Lex existed. And dismay that, now Oliver was stuck in this situation with her. Their only hope was that, somehow, the rest of the League had tracked Oliver to where ever this place was and rescue wasn't too far away.

A hand placed on one of her breasts brought her out of her thoughts and Chloe looked up to find a robed Lex smirking down at her.

*^*^*

Oliver knew there was nothing he could do. The tables, chairs and bed were all bolted quite firmly to the floor, there was nothing to throw against the windowed mirror except his own body, which he'd done for a few minutes during the start of Chloe's rape, but he soon gave it up when the sniper appeared.

Sitting on the end of the bed, he continued to watch the monitor with disgusted horror.

Hearing about someone getting raped, reading about it in the newspaper or watching a movie that dealt with it was … it was _nothing_ compared to actually seeing it happen… than _watching_ it without being able to do anything to help the victim.

As Green Arrow, he'd seen a lot of things; he'd stopped a lot of crime before it had happened, he'd been there to comfort victims and call the police after others had happened. But neither Green Arrow nor Oliver Queen had ever come across a sexual assault in progress, much less against someone as precious to him as Chloe Sullivan.

There was no audio but Oliver didn't know if that was a blessing or not. He could see Chloe squirm on the gurney as Lex pleasured himself with his sadomasochistic desires; he watched as Lex bit and scratched and bruised and dug into Chloe's flesh; he saw her mouth open, her body clench, arch, and jolt with every thing the bald billionaire did.

And he hadn't even entered her yet.

When Lex finally did, Oliver swallowed hard, closing his eyes momentarily, not knowing whether he should turn away or continue watching. When he opened his eyes, he could see liquid glistening from Chloe's eyes and, despite himself, he saw blood on Lex's shaft as it moved in and out of his Watchtower's body.

Barely able to get himself to the open bathroom in time, Oliver was violently sick into the toilet, struggling to breathe not only through the vomiting but also through the tears that were running down his face.

*^*^*

After Lex was finished with Chloe, he left her to the scientists, who cleaned her up and then ran a few tests. In a matter of a few hours, they were able to tell if she had successfully become pregnant. Once they found out she had, Lex ordered them to proceed with the medical procedure to introduce some accelerated growth chemicals into the embryo, still inside Chloe.

If this procedure worked, their next step was to induce some modified DNA into the embryo. If both of these steps took, the next fetus would be thusly manipulated as well.

The scientists decided to leave the monitoring equipment and peripherals connected to Chloe but wheel her into her cell so they could continue with their experiments and testing without having her in the room to obstruct the walkways.

When security left, Oliver moved the gurney over to the side of the bed so he could give her as much comfort as possible. Fighting his tears, fury and frustration, Oliver caressed her, whispering softly to her, much as he'd done several hours earlier.

Some time later, Oliver watched as Chloe began to regain consciousness. Oliver didn't want her to come to in a panic at being touched, so he continued whispering to her, caressing the closest arm, up to her shoulder and then her cheek into her hair. After she was completely conscious, Oliver gave her sips from the water bottle when she requested.

Not too long after, Chloe began wincing as if in pain.

Knowing the scientists were monitoring her, Oliver could do nothing except offer comfort and whispered encouragement and comments. However, as the pain grew exponentially, he began seeing her pelvic muscles trembling and then clenching. Chloe had begun moaning with the pain, squeezing the hand Oliver had given her to hold. A few moments later, Chloe gave a shuddering gasp, trying to move her legs. Just as Oliver noticed blood beginning to seep onto the table from her groin, security and scientists arrived to wheel Chloe back out to the lab.

The monitor wasn't activated for a long while and Oliver paced the cell with growing worry and frustration.

A tray arrived for Oliver, apparently Chloe wasn't going to be able to return for her meal, and Oliver ignored it.

Another try arrived and pushed the ignored tray forward, much later, telling Oliver that several hours must have passed and there was no word or anything regarding Chloe.

Just when he thought about throwing himself into the windowed mirror again to get someone's attention, the monitor showing the lab was powered on.

It was obvious that whatever happened had been cleaned up and taken care of because Lex was once again in a robe, standing near the gurney with a prepped Chloe, ready to be mounted again.

Oliver shook his head violently, "Oh God, no… no, no, no, not again. Not now." His hands went to his hair, grabbing handfuls, he closed his eyes as Lex began to straddle Chloe. Oliver didn't even bother to back up to the bed, he just let his knees give out and sank to the floor. He had no idea how he could watch as Chloe was raped again without going insane or getting himself killed trying to get out to the lab and murder Lex Luthor.

*^*^*

By the time the impregnation was confirmed, the scientists had come to the conclusion that Chloe's body would not accept any external tampering of the natural reproductive process – such as the manipulated-DNA sperm they had tried at the beginning of her captivity. This meant that all of the genetic enhancement or manipulation had to have already been completed within the male that would mount the petite blonde.

While Chloe lay in the lab, Lex and his scientists conversed around and over her. The next step was to start making the genetically chosen males 'perfect' for them to breed with the woman. If Chloe's body accepted the sperm from the enhanced/manipulated male, then they could proceed with Lex's army without further pre-birth intervention. If her body rejected the genetically enhanced/manipulated male, then there would obviously need to be further pre-birth intervention as soon as the embryo was moved to the uterine replicator.

Lex bent down to Chloe, slapping her face roughly to get her attention. As her eyes focused on him once again, he told her that no matter what the outcome, every other week, for the rest of her natural reproductive lifespan, she'd be supplying them with an embryo after being mounted by whichever male was in line for her. Once her ovaries were exhausted, they would have no further use for her, as a breeder, at least.

"However, I'm sure we'll still be in need of your other abilities, Miss Sullivan." Lex started to turn away from her and then stopped. Turning back around, he caressed one hand down her body, making her shudder. "And I'll be more than happy to continue our sexual liaisons, of course." With that, Lex patted the cheek he'd slapped and walked out of the lab.

*^*^*

Lex hadn't planned on spending so much time at the laboratory where Chloe and Oliver were being held, but the time was obviously very productive, in so many ways. He'd gotten to mount the bothersome reporter, not once, but twice. And he'd gotten to inflict some pain and humiliation to his former Excelsior schoolmate.

Sitting at his desk back in Metropolis after almost five days of being absent, he allowed himself one more time of watching the video of Oliver's reaction of both mountings, thoroughly enjoying the anguish Oliver showed in regards to Miss Sullivan's current situation.

Lex's only true regret was that he wouldn't be mounting Chloe again, at least in the foreseeable future; he needed to concern himself with LuthorCorp business. However, his scientists had been given specific instructions on what to do in regards to several scenarios and he was content at the moment to let them do what was needed.

*^*^*

At the comm back at Oliver's penthouse, Bart watched Lex watching the DVD of both his mountings of Chloe and of Oliver's reactions.

"You're ours you fucking son of a bitch."

Impulse quickly communicated with the other League members before activating the video feed to those capable of watching it where they were at the moment. After, all of them hardened their resolve to let nothing deter them from their surveillance of the target and getting their teammates back home.  
.

A lone Queen Industries satellite continued circling the planet, sending out a signal that would locate a very specific tracker.

Located on the body of Oliver Queen, the passive protein-based tracker waited to relay its coordinates back to the Justice League's computers.

*^*^*

While Oliver hadn't been able to hear anything from the other room, he knew that whatever Lex's parting comments had been to Chloe, he knew it had been something that rattled her because when security finally wheeled the gurney back into their cell about an hour later, Chloe still had tears in her eyes.

Quickly unfastening the restraints, Oliver gathered her into his arms and then settled them both back onto the bed, much like he'd done that first time after she'd been wheeled back into the room. Holding her close, Oliver caressed her as comfortingly as possible, letting her cry and shudder against him. He struggled to contain his emotions as well as his own tears. Chloe needed him to be strong, she needed to see and feel his strength and not his fear or despair regarding their situation and he wasn't going to let her down.

Oliver knew that as soon as the League got the signal from the tracker that was adhered to his body, which had been placed as close to his testicles as possible, hoping that if he'd been abducted that he wouldn't be strip searched, the guys would be there to get them out of this hell hole.

He didn't want to think of all the scenarios that could keep the League away, like Lex having sufficiently shielded the lab so that the satellite's signal wouldn't be able to get through, and mentally fought to keep himself centered and focused on giving Chloe whatever comfort and support he could.

All they had to do was wait, to be patient.

And survive.

*^*^*

By Oliver's counting of trays, it was three days later when he and Chloe began to make out sounds coming from the other side of the one way mirrored wall. Before they could make it from the bed to the wall however, a loud alarm began to ring in the laboratory and gunshots were beginning to be heard.

As the sounds grew more chaotic, the two prisoners looked at each other and, reaching the wall, they began pounding on it. Within moments though, a hissing sound began around them and their cell started filling with some type of gas.

"This can't be good." Oliver found himself saying as he and Chloe began throwing themselves against the glass wall. However, before they could do that more than a few times, the gas coming into the room seemed to be coming to a halt; before they could think, the 'sniper square' opened and the gunman began firing at them.

With nowhere to hide, Oliver basically threw Chloe under the bolted table and chairs and then lunged for the farthest side of the bed, already knowing that Watchtower had the best cover available and he wasn't going to survive the situation.  
.

After months of captivity, Chloe could only huddle under the table where Oliver threw her, her hands over her ears to block out the sounds of the assault, which echoed terribly in the small space, shivering. When the gunfire stopped, it took her several moments to come to herself as the silence descended around her. Opening eyes that she hadn't realized she'd closed, Chloe looked around her.

After a few seconds of staring at the far side of the bed, she came to herself with the knowledge that she'd been completely mesmerized with the sight of Oliver's body, riddled with bullets and laying in a huge puddle of blood. Moving herself from under the table and chairs, going to Oliver's side, seemed uncomprehendingly slow to her.

Chloe knew she was in shock; the sniper's first bullets having torn through one shoulder and another through her upper chest, Chloe was suffering from blood loss herself. But her brain was also trying to keep her going through one more torture, one more trauma, by wrapping her mental processes in figurative blankets of cotton. Blinking when she reached Oliver's side, she was aware that he was barely alive, which was a miracle in itself considering she could see six distinct bullet wounds, in his body.

His eyes, wide open, tracking towards her as his mouth moved to voice something his body had no air or energy to process, she could only stare at him, watching blood drip from his mouth, gurgle from a torn lung, stream from the other wounds.

Trapped in her own mind, Chloe didn't really see what lay in front of her or hear the door mechanism cycling behind her. By chance, one of her fingers connected with warm, sticky liquid and she reflexively flattened her hand over what was left of Oliver's chest.

Oliver's brain was more cognitive than Chloe's was and he understood the petite blonde was in shock – compound shock if that made sense. He also knew that part of Watchtower understood he was dying and was instinctively putting her in position to heal him.

He couldn't allow her to do that! She was mortally wounded herself; she was in shock, suffering through a cascade of traumas. She'd kill herself healing him and he couldn't, he _wouldn't_, allow her to do that.

But he couldn't move or communicate in any coherent way, and she was so out of it that Oliver didn't think anything he did could reach her at this moment in time. Noticing movement behind her, his eyes tracked to Bart and AC as they moved towards them just as Chloe's healing glow began.

*^*^*

_**Author's Notes regarding below**__ (actual URL info at bottom of this chapter)__**:**_

_I'm taking considerable liberty with the design of the Batplane. According to Wikipedia, it has a maximum speed of 4,400mph; however, from everything I've looked at, the Batplane only carries two people. In this story, it obviously carries more._

_Also, I realize that my time period of five days for Lex being missing is incorrect when combined with where the lab that Chloe and Oliver are being held in is – it was too short. Just know that 1) I didn't know where the lab was until this section and 2) I don't know how long it would take a 'spy satellite' to cover an orbit, let alone how long it would take to find something in another country – but I'm pretty sure it would not have taken the length of time I've put in the story._

Finally, the satellite found the tracker that had been adhered to Oliver Queen's body and the Justice League now had a location on the lab that Lex had taken them to. While Batman and Cyborg had begun to come to the conclusion that the lab wasn't anywhere on the North American continent, it was still relatively disconcerting to find out that Lex had taken them to French Polynesia.

Since they were going after Oliver Queen, not Green Arrow, they didn't necessarily have to hide the Queen Industries' jet. The plane would be transporting a small, commandeered by Bruce Wayne, medical team that would be meeting with the unidentified group who rescued them.

Batman and the rest of the Justice League, traveling in the Batplane, would be in the area much more quickly than any other civilian aircraft could ever manage. And, given the normal speed of the jet, it should arrive at about the same time that the League actually hoped to be finished with rescuing Oliver and Chloe from Lex's lab.

While Aquaman, Impulse and Boy Scout could get there even ahead of the Batplane, they all opted to fly with the Dark Knight. Streaking towards the island that held the lab, the League went over their plans once more.

*^*^*

The op was controlled chaos. Lex's security was better but not up to taking on the likes of five individuals completely dedicated to getting their two missing team members back. However, before Cyborg was able to shut down everything, some type of gas was beginning to be released into the room that the team had identified as where Chloe and Oliver were being held. As Impulse raced towards the room, Cyborg was able to bypass the last few security measures to shut the system down; hearing gunshots coming over the speedster's comm link, Aquaman hurried his own approach to the cell.

As Batman, Cyborg and Boy Scout took out the remainder of the security force, evacuated the facility, gathered intel and readied the buildings for demolition, AC and Bart were finally able to get into the room that held their friends.  
.

Aquaman and Impulse came to a halt just a foot or so away from the naked and bleeding form of Watchtower as she struggled to heal the half naked and deathly pale leader of the Justice League. They could tell that Chloe was having significant problems with her ability as the glow that surrounded Oliver kept stuttering, like a candle struggling not to gut out in a strong breeze. Then, well before Oliver was healed, Chloe simply collapsed, the golden glow winking out of existence as if it had never been.

AC keyed his communicator, "Aquaman to Batman, we have an ETA on the jet?"

However, before Batman could answer, they all heard Bart in the background, "Watchtower… she's… she's dead…. She's got two gun shot wounds and Arrow… man… he's hurt bad, even with Chloe's partial healing. He's still bleeding, AC, really bad."

"Report." Was Batman's reply instead of the estimated time of arrival for the Queen Industries jet.

Aquaman filled him in on the partial healing they had witnessed and Chloe and Oliver's conditions.

"We can't wait, we've got to get them to a medical facility, now." Clark's voice came over the link, thick with worry and concern.

"Can you two get them to the Batplane or do you need Boy Scout to help?"

"We got it." Came their simultaneous replies to Batman as Bart picked up the petite blonde, struggling to keep the blood that flowed from her body down to a minimum while AC lifted Oliver into his own arms.

"Just hang on, guys; hang on!"

*^*^*

Awareness seemed to come slowly but he couldn't really say that until he was actually conscious – it was like he had been floating around for a long time before he actually came to. However, with consciousness came the realization that he had something shoved down his throat and right on top of that was pain. All over. And the absolute worst headache he'd ever had, bar none.

As he struggled to move, to look around, an alarm started sounding from above him. He didn't have any strength at all and just before he began to panic about everything, Bart was next to him, one hand on his shoulder, the other resting on a leg.

"Hey Boss, relax, you're ok."

When he tried to raise a hand up towards his face, Bart placed his own over it, halting the barely there flutter of movement. "Wait, the doc needs to take that out. They had to put you in a coma to let your lung heal a bit. I'll let 'em know that the alarm was real this time; you've been trying to wake up for awhile now and it kept going off." Bart gave him a small smile before going over to the door and motioning for someone.

A moment later a doctor and nurse came into the room followed by Clark, Victor, AC and Bart.

Moments later, after the tube was removed from his throat and they'd given him a vitals check and such, they left and Oliver looked to his team.

Seeing the questions in Oliver's eyes, Bart was the one to start answering them. "You've been out for almost a week, boss." Bart dropped his gaze, not knowing what to say next.

Oliver got a terrible feeling, one that translated to the monitors; struggling in vain against his unresponsive body, Clark and AC were there to try and quiet him this time.

"Oliver, you need to calm down. You're still weak and if you keep doing this, you're going to open up everything that the doctors spent hours trying to fix." Clark's face was several inches away from the other man's.

The billionaire tried to say something, his voice almost non-existent, cutting in and out, Clark the only one able to understand exactly what he'd really said.

"AC and I've been playing Green Arrow since you disappeared." He whispered close to Oliver's ear before continuing in a normal tone, "Everything's taken care of, Oliver, just rest. Once you're better, we'll fill you in on everything."

Oliver knew from the way Clark wouldn't quite meet his eyes, that the dark haired reporter knew he hadn't answered what he'd been asked. As the blonde struggled once more, setting alarms off, Clark and Victor tried to calm their friend down but it became apparent that he wasn't going to settle until he got an answer.

But it wasn't an answer that he'd want to hear, nor would it make anything any better.

In fact, it would probably make things much worse.

Bart and AC joined in the efforts to quiet their friend, the youngest member being the one that Oliver's gaze found and clung to. The tears in Bart's eyes made Oliver pause momentarily, choked emotions halting his movements.

"Bruce has got her. She's at his mansion with a private medical team. Chloe… … she tried healing you but…" Bart broke eye contact and Clark took up the explanation as a doctor and nurse hurriedly entered the room.

"She's been … Oliver, she … She hasn't … Chloe's been dead since we rescued you."

Oliver lost it then. His body wouldn't obey him, but his mind was all his and the wail of anguish that he let loose inside translated to a moan of incredible agony to the outside. A moan that went on for several moments before the sedative the doctor plunged into one of Oliver's IV lines finally pushed him into the darkness of deep sleep.

*^*^*

Batplane information:

.org / wiki / Batplane

[Researched flight… Kansas to New York is about 5 hours, 40 minutes.

New York to Tahiti is about 12 to 12.5 hours

.com / Q / How_long_is_a_flight_from_New_York_to_Kansas

.com / Q / How_long_is_the_flight_from_new_york_to_tahiti ]

According to a question on WikiAnswers, Boeing says the cruising speeds of their jets (depending on the type) are between (MD 90) approximately Mach 0.76 or 500 mph – to (737) Mach 0.82 or 550 mph.

.com / Q / What_is_the_cruising_speed_of_a_jet ]


	9. Chapter 9

_I was actually in the midst of posting this story over to my site when I found this... it's pretty put together although could do with some editing/revising BUT... I figured better this than nothing at all so..._

Chapter Eight

While Oliver was alive, barely, he could be taken care of at the closest fully staffed medical facility, which Clark had literally run him to. However, Chloe wasn't so fortunate. According to every standardized medical exam, she was dead – a medical staff anywhere would declare her so and send her to the morgue.

When the rest of the team met near the Batplane after the facility had been completely evacuated, personnel fleeing down the road that led up to the buildings, Victor hit the detonation switch and everyone still in the area watched the destruction of another 33.1 lab.

As debris began to rain back down to the ground, the team began boarding. AC, with Bart following closely behind, was holding the body of Chloe close to him, wrapped tightly in an emergency blanket. Just as Batman and Cyborg moved to enter the plane, a woman in a dirty lab coat ran up to them.

Her hair in disarray, obviously having been caught closer to the blast than anyone should have, as petite as their Watchtower and clearly anxious about being seen with them, she shoved a flash drive into Batman's hands and got straight to the point.

"Mr. Luthor will want her back; he won't let her go, no matter how many times she gets away from him. You must make sure that Ms. Sullivan is never found again."

"She's dead, Lex can't very well need her now." Cyborg responded while Batman assessed her.

"If you know anything about her ability, you know that she probably isn't dead." The scientist said quietly, looking behind her and then back to the costumed pair. "Mr. Luthor knows a lot about her ability, he knows she can die and come back to life, he won't give up on her so easily. If she's truly dead, you'll need to cremate her and then get rid of her ashes, somewhere he'll never be able to get hold of them." The woman turned, obviously getting ready to run after her colleagues.

"Why are you so concerned about the disposition of Ms. Sullivan?" Batman growled, making the woman turn around but causing her to step backwards.

"Several of us aren't here because we want to be, Batman. Mr. Luthor has been blackmailing some and coercing others." Looking back over her shoulder, her anxiety showing clearly. "Mr. Luthor kidnapped my mother, my husband and my son. As long as I did what he told me to do, they were safe; I saw them via CCTV every morning and every evening. With the destruction of the lab and…." She trailed off dispiritedly.

"All the information that Mr. Luthor had us gather on Ms. Sullivan, in and out of the lab, is on that drive." The woman nodded to the gloved hand of Batman and then turned away from them once more.

"Do you have any idea where your family is being held?" Cyborg called to the retreating form.

The woman stopped, turning around she shook her head sadly before running off once more.

*^*^*

Dropping AC and Bart off near the hospital Clark had run Oliver to, Victor and Bruce set off with the body of Chloe Sullivan. Reaching Wayne Manor in a short amount of time, the two set Chloe's form on a cot in the medical bay. Not understanding exactly how Chloe's power worked, Alfred and Victor opted to set up all the needed medical equipment in one of the bedrooms in the manor itself, to deal with the injuries they knew about as Bruce went through the information downloaded from the lab's mainframe as well as the flash drive.

When all was ready, Bruce carried Chloe's body up to the chosen bedroom and laid her out on the bed. Beginning to unwrap the emergency blanket from her naked and wounded body, the three men were shocked to find a great deal of blood pooled between the woman's legs.

"She must have…." Victor started but couldn't finish, his mind having flashed on the video they'd all seen of Lex's rape of Watchtower.

"Spontaneous abortion." Bruce said in as neutral a voice as he could while he and Alfred continued to unwrap and then begin to clean the body.

Within minutes, Chloe was hooked up to all the machines that were or would be needed to gauge if she was alive and then to maintain her life if she … if she came back to life after the partial healing of Oliver and was unable to heal herself. As the machine that was set to read her brain activity was turned on, the three men found themselves holding their breaths.

A moment later, the switch was turned on and a monitor flickered to life, giving them a read out of extraordinary activity in a brain that, by all current medical standards, was in a dead body.  
.

As the days passed, the only thing that gave them any hope of Chloe's coming back from the darkness she lived in after a healing was the continued brain activity. Having contacted Lois and Senator Kent to let them know they'd found and rescued both Oliver and Chloe, Bruce found himself hosting the petite blonde's cousin. While he wasn't too happy with having the woman around, he was grateful for her willingness to sit vigil at Chloe's side so that Alfred, Bruce and Batman could attend to their own duties.

AC had returned with Clark to Metropolis in order to continue their tours as the Green Arrow while Bart and Victor maintained surveillance on Lex. All four of them tried to rotate guard duty shifts on Oliver Queen, who'd been transported to Star City as soon as he was stable enough for travel via a Queen Industries jet.

The day Oliver emerged from his medically induced coma, Bruce Wayne had actually been in a face-to-face meeting with several other people, including Lex Luthor. It was quite a coincidence that the other four members of the Justice League had been in the hospital at the time.

After Oliver was sedated, they all realized that what had been said to the blonde billionaire could have been phrased significantly better. However, what Clark had said was, essentially, if not technically, true. Chloe was still dead, and if they hadn't known about the brain activity that Lex and his scientists had discovered, she'd probably have been placed in a morgue by this point in time.

The time that Oliver awoke and was clear headed enough to carry on a true conversation, although still addled from pain medication and his body's need to sleep, Bruce was with him. However, as he began to fill the blonde billionaire in on things, Alfred called with news.

*^*^*

Lois was sitting at the desk near the bed containing the 'dead' body of her cousin, reading a magazine, when the machine monitoring the extraordinary brain activity that was happening inside Chloe, sounded an alarm.

Before Lois could actually get to it, a bright light, emanating from Chloe, pulsed so intensely that she had to shield her eyes. It only seemed to flare for a few seconds before disappearing and Lois heard Alfred's abrupt entrance into the room.

Blinking several times to clear her eyes, Lois stood and leaned over Chloe's bedside. Alfred was already there, looking down with, what was to him, shock – all her uncovered bruises, scratches and open injuries seemed to be healed.

Alfred cautiously lifted the bandage from a shoulder that had, moments ago, been a non-healing bullet hole and found it completely healed, as if no wound had ever been there. The two checked the rest of Chloe's body and found no sign of the traumas that she had suffered.

Glancing back to the machine monitoring her brain activity, they found it significantly reduced, but Chloe still seemed comatose.

After a moment of consideration, Alfred was the one to break the silence of the room.

"I must call Master Bruce. I'll bring you your afternoon tea once I've done so, Miss Lane."

*^*^*


End file.
